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intonation

UK/ɪntəˈneɪʃən/US/ɪntəˈneɪʃən/
nounB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,885 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: intonations

Intonation is the musical rise and fall of the voice in speech. Rising intonation, flat intonation, question intonation.

It carries meaning that the words do not: the same sentence is a question, a statement or a challenge depending on the tune, and learners who master the words and not the tune are still misunderstood. In music, intonation means playing in tune. Note that the Latin means to sound out, from tonus.

Definitions of intonation

  1. 1nounintonationThe rise and fall of the voice in speech.B2+

    “Her grammar is excellent, but her flat intonation makes her sound bored even when she's excited.”

intonation is a feature of speech.

Where it comes from

Medieval Latin intonatio comes from intonare, to intone, from tonus, a tone. Tone and thunder come from related sounds.

  1. Medieval Latin

    intonatio

  2. French

    intonation

  3. English, today

    intonation

From French intonation, from Medieval Latin intonatio, from intonō + tiō.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in News & Communication

Practise this word

intonation in the wild

  • Just intonation is the tuning of a musical interval without beats.

    Just intonation

  • Musicians around the world instinctively perform in just intonation.

    Just intonation

  • Benjamin Burwell Johnston Jr. was an American contemporary music composer, known for his use of just intonation.

    Ben Johnston (composer)

  • In linguistics, prosody () is the study of elements of speech, including intonation, stress, rhythm and loudness, that occur simultaneously with individual phonetic segments: vowels and consonants.

    Prosody (linguistics)

  • Although intonation is primarily a matter of pitch variation, its effects almost always work hand-in-hand with other prosodic features.

    Intonation (linguistics)

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.