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Glite Dictionary
to sing in key

to sing in key

1 4.0
To match your voice to the notes of the song
  • phrasal verb
  • /sɪŋ ɪn ki/
: cantar afinado
  • She was praised by the music teacher for her ability to sing in key with the piano accompaniment.

Examples

  • At least they sang in key, but could they please sing something else?

    Fiction book (1990)

  • The band has a promotional bio that says something like "they play loud and sing in key," which is sort of what keeps it interesting.

    Blog text (27)

  • This arrogant little prick has always had zero talent, answers an ad for a teen boy band, has no training at all, couldn't sing in key live then and can't to this day.

    Blog text (5)

  • Justin wannabe can't sing in key, out of time, tone-deaf POS, no good fucking cocksucker who mocked the homeless, etc.

    Blog text (5)

  • The choir practices regularly to ensure that they all sing in key during performances.

  • While rehearsing, it was clear that not everyone could sing in key, so they decided to hold extra sessions.

Synonyms

to carry a tune
vsto sing in key
9 4.5

To sing in tune without going off-key

is the neutral technical term for producing correct musical pitch

Antonyms

out of tune
14 3.3

Notes are at the wrong pitch so a piano or violin sounds bad

How In Tune

to sing in key
1 4.0
out of tune
14 3.3

Surface Forms

sing in key infinitive
singing in key present participle
sings in key third person singular
sang in key past
sung in key past participle

Morphology

sing + in + key

The meaning is directly compositional: 'sing' (perform a song) + 'in' (within) + 'key' (tonality) yields 'sing within the correct tonality/at the correct pitch.' This follows a common, non-idiomatic English pattern (cf. 'sing in tune') and is cross-linguistically transparent, so a B1 learner who knows the constituents can infer the meaning.

Etymology

Sing in key comes from music: a key is the group of notes that make a song feel like home, and to sing in that key means your voice follows those notes so the song sounds right, not 'out of tune'.