Meantone

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A musical temperament that generates all non-octave intervals from a stack of identical perfect fifths all tuned flat from their just ratio of 3/2. When the amount of flattening makes the major and minor thirds appropriate sizes, the syntonic comma is tempered out to a unison. countable, uncountable

Etymology

From mean + tone.

Related phrases

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