to tone
- verb
- /toʊn/
- He decided to tone his speech down when addressing the younger audience.
- tone down the rhetoric
I'm sorry, Let me let me tone down the rhetoric.
- I'm sorry, Let me let me tone down the rhetoric.
Examples
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Could you please tone down your voice during the presentation so everyone can hear?
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You just have to tone it down a little bit.
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Allow me to just go ahead and tone that down a little bit.
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I just have tried to kind of tone it down, scale it back.
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Good, but could you tone it down just a little?
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I think you might need to tone it down just a little bit.
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Just tone it down a little.
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Now, it's a little rough, and we might have to tone it down a bit.
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- Griffin, you got to tone it down.
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Can we just tone it down a little bit with the booze?
Synonyms
Change the pitch and volume of voice or music
Change the sound of your voice to show feeling
To make a voice or instrument sound clearer and fuller
Idioms
Phrasal Verbs
Compounds
- Specialized
The seventh note of a scale that is one half step below the main note and pulls toward it
- Specialized
A musical interval half the size of a semitone used in some modern and non-Western music
- Specialized
A higher sound made when the main note vibrates a whole number of times
- Specialized
A light balanced arm on a record player that holds the needle and moves across a record
- Specialized
A language where changes in voice pitch make words mean different things
How Modulated
Surface Forms
Etymology
The verb tone comes from the Greek tonos, meaning 'tension' or 'stretch'. So to tone your speech is to change the tension or pitch of your voice to sound softer, firmer, or more friendly.