🍋 A bitter soda 💊 A medicine 💧 Refreshing or energizing 🥤 A sweet soda 🎶 Main music chord 🎵 Main music note 📈 Uses pitch for meaning 💪 Steady muscle tone 🔊 Main stressed syllable

tonic

8.1

The syllable in a word that has the main stress and a pitch change

adjective
/ˈtɒnɪk/

Specialized

: tónico

The first syllable is the tonic in the word 'banana'.

Examples

The tonic syllable in 'about' is the second syllable, not the first.
When teaching intonation, it's important to identify the tonic syllable in each phrase.
In English pronunciation, the tonic syllable often receives a noticeable pitch change.
In the word 'photograph', the tonic syllable is the second one.
In the word 'photography', the tonic syllable is 'tog'.
The word 'refusal' has the tonic syllable on the second part, 'fu'.
When pronouncing 'banana', the tonic is on the second syllable, 'na'.

Synonyms

accented

vstonic

4.1

A syllable pronounced with stronger stress than others

is the main stressed syllable often with a pitch change

Antonyms

atonic

Specialized

9.8

Not having stress in a syllable of a word

Compounds

gin and tonic

18 2.7

A cold drink made with gin and tonic water and served with ice and lime

tonic water

2 2.5

A fizzy drink with a bitter taste often mixed with gin

hair tonic

Archaic

1 3.7

A liquid you put on hair to make it look neat, make it easier to manage, or help the scalp

splash of tonic

1 2.3

A small amount of tonic water added to a drink to give flavor

tonic accent

Specialized

9.1

Emphasis on a syllable shown by a change to a higher or lower voice

tonic epilepsy

Specialized

6.9

A seizure that makes the muscles suddenly become very stiff

tonic key

Specialized

8.1

The main note and scale that a piece of music returns to

tonic solfa

9.1

A way of writing music with syllables like do, re, mi to show the notes of a scale

Surface Forms

tonic positive

Morphology

tonic = tone (transparent) = ton + ic

The word 'tonic' is transparently derived from 'tone' with the suffix '-ic', indicating a relationship to tone.

Etymology

Tonic for a syllable comes from the root tone meaning 'pitch', because the tonic syllable is the one that carries the main 'tone' or pitch in a phrase.