Distune

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To put (something) out of tune. transitive

    "[…] the clapper of his distuned belle May cankre soone I mene his false tonge Be doumbe for euer & neuer efte to be runge"

  2. 2
    To cause (something) not to be in harmony or to be poorly adjusted. figuratively, transitive

    "1654, Thomas Jackson, A Treatise of the Primaeval Estate of the First Man, Section 2, Chapter 13, in An Exact Collection of the Works of Doctor Jackson, London: Timothy Garthwait, p. 3037, But by eating of the forbidden fruit, and losse of Paradise, his very substance was corrupted and deprived of Life Spiritual: and all his Powers or Faculties not only corrupted, but distuned."

Example

More examples

"[…] the clapper of his distuned belle May cankre soone I mene his false tonge Be doumbe for euer & neuer efte to be runge"

Etymology

From dis- + tune.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.