out of tune
12
3.3
- idiom
:
desentonado
- After a quick adjustment, the violin was no longer out of tune and harmonized beautifully with the orchestra.
- sing out of tune
- slightly out of tune
- extremely out of tune
OK so you want to actually have things be out of tune a little bit so it choruses.
- OK so you want to actually have things be out of tune a little bit so it choruses.
- The song was terribly out of tune, but sung with great enthusiasm.
- And, and they had as as part of that, they had like the middle school band playing slightly out of tune.
- Sylvan briefly kind of makes it out of tune a little bit, but you've got some skills kid, you got some skills.
Examples
-
Mother says she can't stand to teach piano with it all out of tune.
Fiction book (1993) -
The piano is out of tune.
-
I think it's out of tune or something.
-
This piano is out of tune.
-
Is the piano out of tune?
-
Even though the piano is a bit out of tune, it's still beautiful.
Fiction book (2001) -
The instrument is horribly out of tune; almost every note is off.
Fiction book (1993) -
The rickety old upright is tinny-sounding and slightly out of tune.
Fiction book (2001) -
He's playing an out-of-tune piano in a nightclub.
-
He's out of tune.
Synonyms
12
4.5
A voice or instrument that sounds in the wrong pitch
1
5.8
Not singing or playing the right musical notes
Not tuned to the correct musical pitch
Not at the right pitch and sounds wrong when played
Slightly lower in pitch than it should be
Antonyms
How In Tune
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'out of' conveys 'not in' or 'not matching' and 'tune' denotes musical pitch/harmony, so a learner who knows the constituents can infer 'not having the correct pitch' (and by extension 'not matching'). This is a common prepositional construction in English and has clear parallels in many languages, making it immediately understandable to B1 learners.
Etymology
Out of tune comes from music: when an instrument is literally out of tune, its notes are the wrong pitch and do not sound good together. So the phrase now means 'not having the right musical sound' and can also be used to say something is 'not matching' or 'not in agreement'.