whole tone

noun Music.

an interval of two semitones, as A-B or B-C♯; a major second.

Also called whole·tone.

Origin:
1895–1900

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Collins

World English Dictionary

whole tone or (US and Canadian) whole step

—n
	Often shortened to: tone an interval of two semitones; a frequency difference of 200 cents in the system of equal temperament

whole step or (US and Canadian) whole step

—n

00:10

Whole tone is always a great word to know.

So is interrobang. Does it mean:

a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.

a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.

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whole tone or (US and Canadian) whole step

—n
	Often shortened to: tone an interval of two semitones; a frequency difference of 200 cents in the system of equal temperament

whole step or (US and Canadian) whole step

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

American Heritage

Cultural Dictionary

whole tone definition

An interval between musical notes. Do and re are a whole tone apart, as are re and mi, fa and sol, sol and la, and la and ti.

Matching Quote

"The master propagandist, like the advertising expert, avoids obvious emotional appeals and strives for a tone that is consistent with the prosaic quality of modern life—a dry, bland matter-of-factness. Nor does the propagandist circulate "intentionally biased" information. He knows that partial truths serve as more effective instruments of deception than lies. Then he tries to impress the public with statistics of economic growth that ne glect to give the base year from which the growth is calculated, with accurate but meaningless facts about the standard of living—with raw and uninterpreted data, in other words, from which the audience is invited to draw the inescapable conclusion that things are getting better and the present regime therefore deserves the people's confidence.... By using accurate details to imply a misleading picture of the whole, the artful propagandist, it has been said, makes truth the principal form of falsehood."

-Christopher Lasch

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whole tone

whole step

whole tone definition