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Webster 1913 Edition


Overtone

O′ver-toneˊ

,
Noun.
[A translation of G.
oberton
. See
Over
,
Tone
.]
(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.