Other forms: tenors
A tenor is the highest ordinary male singing voice. A tenor voice, sing tenor, the great tenors.
The range sits above baritone and below countertenor, and the tenor usually gets the hero's part in opera, which is why tenors are the famous ones. Tenor also names instruments in that range: tenor saxophone, tenor drum. The quite separate sense is the general drift of something — the tenor of the debate, the tenor of his remarks — which is the older meaning and comes from holding a course.
1nountenorThe highest ordinary male singing voice.
“The tenor reached the high notes of the famous aria with ease.”
2noungeneralThe general drift or sense of something.
“The tenor of her letters changed after the war, from cheerful to sad.”
tenor is a voice range, or a general drift.
Latin tenor means a holding or a course, from tenere, to hold. In early polyphony the tenor held the main melody while other voices moved around it, so the voice is named for the job.
Proto-Indo-European
*ten-
Latin
tenor — course, continuance; holder
Old French
tenor — substance, contents, meaning, sense; tenor part in music
Anglo-Norman
tenour
Middle English
tenour
English, today
tenor
Built from
From Middle English tenour, from Anglo-Norman tenour, from Old French tenor (“substance, contents, meaning, sense; tenor part in music”), from Latin tenor (“course, continuance; holder”), from teneō (“to hold”). In music, from the notion of the one who holds the melody, as opposed to the countertenor.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA