tenor voice
1
4.3
- noun
- /ˈtɛnər vɔɪs/
- Specialized
:
voz de tenor
- The choir needs more men with a strong tenor voice for the upcoming performance.
Examples
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His tenor voice filled the concert hall with beautiful melodies.
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"Rolf Uhrquest, Space Transportation Department," he said in a clear tenor voice.
Fiction book (2001) -
You have a very nice tenor voice yourself.
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Did you know he had a beautiful tenor voice?
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No, not me, but I got a tenor voice people come miles to hear.
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"Dalka's tenor voice carried easily on the breeze."
Fiction book (1994) -
"I think what Axel has done is creative and amusing," he said in his soft tenor voice.
Fiction book (2002) -
I think then he had the purest tenor voice, ever put into a man's throat.
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Scott is my protégé and Scott is such a dear boy, with the sweetest tenor voice.
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From the dappled shadows came the sweet sounds of her father's tenor voice singing the aria about stars from Tosca.
Fiction book (1998)
Synonyms
30
4.2
A high adult male singing voice higher than baritone
How High
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'tenor' denotes a male singer/voice type and 'voice' denotes the sound produced, so 'tenor voice' straightforwardly means the singing voice of a tenor. This noun+noun description follows common cross-linguistic patterns for voice/type labels, making it immediately understandable to a B1 learner who knows both constituents.
Etymology
Tenor voice may come from old church music. The word tenor comes from a word meaning 'to hold' because the tenor part used to 'hold' the main tune and was often sung by a man, so tenor voice became the name for a man's singing voice that is higher than a baritone.