overtone
Music. an acoustical frequency that is higher in frequency than the fundamental.
an additional, usually subsidiary and implicit meaning or quality: an aesthetic theory with definite political overtones.
Origin of overtone
1Other words for overtone
Words Nearby overtone
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use overtone in a sentence
Croft’s basic personality and backstory remained in place, but it had a darker, more brooding overtone.
Today, her phrase “birth control” suggests overtones of control by the state or others, and is no longer commonly used.
How medicine sought to control women’s bodies while ignoring their symptoms | Susan Okie | July 2, 2021 | Washington PostThere were racial overtones to that kind of perception of the ingredient.
How and when to use garlic powder, a reliable seasoning that deserves respect | Aaron Hutcherson | June 25, 2021 | Washington PostSpace started as a duopoly as the United States and the Soviet Union vied for supremacy in a geopolitical contest with loud military overtones.
Gender boundaries were rigidly policed, at times with moral overtones, and the social pressures laid upon men and women were very real.
I know this is the word used in English but “Holocaust” has a sacrificial overtone that is unbearable to me.
Claude Lanzmann on 'Shoah', His Memoir, and the Banality of Evil | Clémence Boulouque | June 11, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTSince this is a law of vibration, it is unscientific to speak of giving an overtone, for all tones contain overtones.
Expressive Voice Culture | Jessie Eldridge SouthwickImpassioned it continued, and yet with the overtone of a great pity and tenderness now vibrating through it.
Robert Annys: Poor Priest | Annie Nathan MeyerBut now quiet, save for an undescribable, whispering overtone that seemed to permeate the air.
The Whispering Spheres | Russell Robert WinterbothamIn any overtone, the number of the parts or vibrating segments of the string is one more than the number of the overtone.
Physics | Willis Eugene TowerAnd the tinkle of myriad glass wind bells held a maddening overtone.
Shock Treatment | Stanley Mullen
British Dictionary definitions for overtone
/ (ˈəʊvəˌtəʊn) /
(often plural) additional meaning or nuance: overtones of despair
music acoustics any of the tones, with the exception of the fundamental, that constitute a musical sound and contribute to its quality, each having a frequency that is a multiple of the fundamental frequency: See also harmonic (def. 7), partial (def. 6)
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Scientific definitions for overtone
[ ō′vər-tōn′ ]
The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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