tonal
/ˈtoʊnəl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.09 in modern English
5
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Employing tones that have a predictable relationship to some tonic.
adj
Employing differences in pitch (tones) to distinguish differences in the meaning of otherwise similar words (words which would otherwise be homophonic).
noun
An animal companion which accompanies a person from birth to death.
Example Sentences
- "Songs for the family-table on Sabbaths and holidays—songs which give those various holy days tonal expression and which aim to spiritualize the meals."
- "The lurid way the story played out felt like a tonal shift for Empire, but not necessarily a bad one—in the process of shedding its cool costume-drama attitude for grotesque family dysfunction, the episode felt for once less like a story about Prohibition and more one about a specific set of people."
- "When a tonal suffers misfortune or death, the same thing happens to the person associated with it."
Etymology
From tone + -al.
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈtoʊnəl/
- British English: /ˈtəʊnəl/