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tone |
6 definitions found From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Sensible \Sen"si*ble\, a. [F., fr L. sensibilis fr sensus sense.] 1. Capable of being perceived by the senses apprehensible through the bodily organs; hence also perceptible to the mind; making an impression upon the sense reason, or understanding; ?????? heat; sensible resistance. Air is sensible to the touch by its motion. --Arbuthnot. The disgrace was more sensible than the pain. --Sir W. Temple. Any very sensible effect upon the prices of things --A. Smith. 2. Having the capacity of receiving impressions from external objects; capable of perceiving by the instrumentality of the proper organs; liable to be affected physsically or mentally; impressible. Would your cambric were sensible as your finger. --Shak. 3. Hence: Liable to impression from without easily affected; having nice perception or acute feeling; sensitive; also readily moved or affected by natural agents; delicate; as a sensible thermometer. ``With affection wondrous sensible.'' --Shak. 4. Perceiving or having perception, either by the senses or the mind; cognizant; perceiving so clearly as to be convinced; satisfied; persuaded. He [man] can not think at any time, waking or sleeping, without being sensible of it --Locke. They are now sensible it would have been better to comply than to refuse. --Addison. 5. Having moral perception; capable of being affected by moral good or evil. 6. Possessing or containing sense or reason; giftedwith or characterized by good or common sense intelligent; wise. Now a sensible man, by and by a fool. --Shak. {Sensible note} or {tone} (Mus.), the major seventh note of any scale; -- so called because being but a half step below the octave, or key tone, and naturally leading up to that it makes the ear sensible of its approaching sound. Called also the {leading tone}. {Sensible horizon}. See {Horizon}, n., 2. a . Syn: Intelligent; wise. Usage: {Sensible}, {Intelligent}. We call a man sensible whose judgments and conduct are marked and governed by sound judgment or good common semse. We call one intelligent who is quick and clear in his understanding, i. e., who discriminates readily and nicely in respect to difficult and important distinction. The sphere of the sensible man lies in matters of practical concern; of the intelligent man, in subjects of intellectual interest. ``I have been tired with accounts from sensible men, furnished with matters of fact which have happened within their own knowledge.'' --Addison. ``Trace out numerous footsteps . . . of a most wise and intelligent architect throughout all this stupendous fabric.'' --Woodward. From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Tone \Tone\, n. 1. (Physiol.) Quality, with respect to attendant feeling; the more or less variable complex of emotion accompanying and characterizing a sensation or a conceptual state; as feeling tone; color tone. 2. Color quality proper; -- called also {hue}. Also a gradation of color, either a hue, or a tint or shade. She was dressed in a soft cloth of a gray tone. --Sir G. Parker. 3. (Plant Physiol.) The condition of normal balance of a healthy plant in its relations to light, heat, and moisture. From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Tone \Tone\, n. [F. ton, L. tonus a sound, tone, fr Gr ? a stretching, straining, raising of the voice, pitch, accent, measure or meter, in pl., modes or keys differing in pitch; akin to ? to stretch or strain. See {Thin}, and cf {Monotonous}, {Thunder}, {Ton} fasion,{Tune}.] 1. Sound, or the character of a sound, or a sound considered as of this or that character; as a low high, loud, grave, acute, sweet, or harsh tone. [Harmony divine] smooths her charming tones. --Milton. Tones that with seraph hymns might blend. --Keble. 2. (Rhet.) Accent, or inflection or modulation of the voice, as adapted to express emotion or passion. Eager his tone, and ardent were his eyes. --Dryden. 3. A whining style of speaking; a kind of mournful or artificial strain of voice; an affected speaking with a measured rhythm ahd a regular rise and fall of the voice; as children often read with a tone. 4. (Mus.) a A sound considered as to pitch; as the seven tones of the octave; she has good high tones. b The larger kind of interval between contiguous sounds in the diatonic scale, the smaller being called a semitone as a whole tone too flat; raise it a tone. c The peculiar quality of sound in any voice or instrument; as a rich tone, a reedy tone. d A mode or tune or plain chant; as the Gregorian tones. Note: The use of the word tone, both for a sound and for the interval between two sounds or tones, is confusing, but is common -- almost universal. Note: Nearly every musical sound is composite, consisting of several simultaneous tones having different rates of vibration according to fixed laws, which depend upon the nature of the vibrating body and the mode of excitation. The components (of a composite sound) are called partial tones; that one having the lowest rate of vibration is the fundamental tone, and the other partial tones are called harmonics, or overtones. The vibration ratios of the partial tones composing any sound are expressed by all or by a part of the numbers in the series 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.; and the quality of any sound (the tone color) is due in part to the presence or absence of overtones as represented in this series, and in part to the greater or less intensity of those present as compared with the fundamental tone and with one another. Resultant tones, combination tones, summation tones, difference tones, Tartini's tones (terms only in part synonymous) are produced by the simultaneous sounding of two or more primary (simple or composite) tones. 5. (Med.) That state of a body, or of any of its organs or parts in which the animal functions are healthy and performed with due vigor. Note: In this sense the word is metaphorically applied to character or faculties, intellectual and moral; as his mind has lost its tone. 6. (Physiol.) Tonicity; as arterial tone. 7. State of mind; temper; mood. The strange situation I am in and the melancholy state of public affairs, . . . drag the mind down . . . from a philosophical tone or temper, to the drudgery of private and public business. --Bolingbroke. Their tone was dissatisfied, almost menacing. --W. C. Bryant. 8. Tenor; character; spirit; drift; as the tone of his remarks was commendatory. 9. General or prevailing character or style, as of morals, manners, or sentiment, in reference to a scale of high and low as a low tone of morals; a tone of elevated sentiment; a courtly tone of manners. 10. The general effect of a picture produced by the combination of light and shade, together with color in the case of a painting; -- commonly used in a favorable sense as this picture has tone. {Tone color}. (Mus.) see the Note under def. 4, above. {Tone syllable}, an accented syllable. --M. Stuart. From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Tone \Tone\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Toned}; p. pr & vb n. {Toning}.] 1. To utter with an affected tone. 2. To give tone, or a particular tone, to to tune. See {Tune}, v. t. 3. (Photog.) To bring as a print, to a certain required shade of color, as by chemical treatment. {To tone down}. a To cause to give lower tone or sound; to give a lower tone to b (Paint.) To modify, as color, by making it less brilliant or less crude; to modify, as a composition of color, by making it more harmonius. Its thousand hues toned down harmoniusly. --C. Kingsley. c Fig.: To moderate or relax; to diminish or weaken the striking characteristics of to soften. The best method for the purpose in hand was to employ some one of a character and position suited to get possession of their confidence, and then use it to tone down their religious strictures. --Palfrey. {To tone up}, to cause to give a higher tone or sound; to give a higher tone to to make more intense; to heighten; to strengthen. From WordNet r 1.6 [wn]: tone n 1: the quality of a person's voice; "he began in a conversational tone"; "he spoke in a nervous tone of voice" [syn: {tone of voice}] 2: (linguistics) a pitch or change in pitch of the voice that serves to distinguish words in tonal languages; "the Beijing dialect uses four tones" 3: the distinctive property of a complex sound (a voice or noise or musical sound); "the timbre of her soprano was rich and lovely"; "the muffled tones of the broken bell summoned them to meet" [syn: {timbre}, {timber}, {quality}] 4: the general atmosphere of a place or situation; "the feel of the city excited him"; "a clergyman improved the tone of the meeting"; "it had the smell of treason" [syn: {spirit}, {feel}, {feeling}, {flavor}, {look}, {smell}] 5: a quality of a given color that differs slightly from a primary color; "after several trials he mixed the shade of pink that she wanted" [syn: {shade}, {tint}, {tincture}] 6: a notation representing the pitch and duration of a musical sound; "the singer held the note too long" [syn: {note}, {musical note}] 7: a steady sound without overtones; "they tested his hearing with pure tones of different frequencies" [syn: {pure tone}] 8: the elastic tension of living muscles, arteries, etc that facilitate response to stimuli; "the doctor tested my tonicity" [syn: {tonicity}, {tonus}] [ant: {atonicity}] 9: a musical interval of two semitones [syn: {whole tone}, {step}, {whole step}] 10: the quality of something (an act or a piece of writing) that reveals the attitudes and presuppositions of the author; "the general tone of articles appearing in the newspapers is that the government should withdraw"; "from the tone of her behavior I gathered that I had outstayed my welcome" v 1: change the color or tone of 2: change to a color image; of photography 3: give a healthy elasticity to "Let's tone our muscles" [syn: {tone up}, {strengthen}] From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (13 Mar 01) [foldoc]: tone {brightness}
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