Other forms: overtones
An overtone is a shade of extra meaning that a word or an act carries. Racial overtones, religious overtones, an overtone of menace.
It is nearly always plural and nearly always about something unwelcome, since nobody reports pleasant overtones. In music an overtone is a higher frequency sounding above a note, and it is what makes a violin and a flute sound different.
1nounovertoneA shade of extra meaning that a word or an act carries with it, as when a remark is said to have racial or religious ones.
“His joke about the new neighbours had racist overtones that upset everyone.”
overtone is a meaning.
Over plus tone, a translation of German Oberton, a higher tone sounding above a note.
German
Oberton
English, today
overtone
From over + tone, German Oberton.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA