Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Overtone
O′ver-toneˊ
,Noun.
(Mus.)
One of the harmonics faintly heard with and at a higher frequency than a fundamental tone as it dies away, produced by some aliquot portion of the vibrating sting or column of air which yields the fundamental tone; one of the natural harmonic scale of tones, as the octave, twelfth, fifteenth, etc.; an aliquot or “partial” tone; a harmonic. See
Harmonic
, and Tone
. Tyndall.
Definition 2024
overtone
overtone
English
Noun
overtone (plural overtones)
- (physics, music) A tone whose frequency is an integer multiple of another; a harmonic
- An implicit message (in a film, book, verbal discussion or similar) perceived as overwhelming the explicit message. See undertone.
- 2012 April 23, Angelique Chrisafis, “François Hollande on top but far right scores record result in French election”, in the Guardian:
- The lawyer and twice-divorced mother of three had presented herself as the modern face of her party, trying to strip it of unsavoury overtones after her father's convictions for saying the Nazi occupation of France was not "particularly inhumane".
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Related terms
- overtoning
Translations
harmonic