Intone
verb ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
- 1 To give tone or variety of tone to; to vocalize. transitive
- 2 recite with musical intonation; recite as a chant or a psalm wordnet
- 3 To utter with a musical or prolonged note or tone; to speak or recite with singing voice; to chant. transitive
"to intone the church service"
- 4 speak carefully, as with rising and falling pitch or in a particular tone wordnet
- 5 To utter a tone; utter a protracted sound. intransitive
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- 6 utter monotonously and repetitively and rhythmically wordnet
Example
More examples"But when the moon rose and the breeze awakened, and the sedges stirred, and the cat’s-paws raced across the moonlit ponds, and the far surf off Wonder Head intoned the hymn of the four winds, the trinity, earth and sky and water, became one thunderous symphony—a harmony of sound and colour silvered to a monochrome by the moon."
Etymology
From Middle English entune, entone, from Old French entoner, from Medieval Latin intonō, from in- (inchoative prefix) + tonus (“pitch, tone”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix); doublet of intonate. Cognate with French entonner, Italian intonare.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.