carry a tune
carry a tune verb: to produce music, especially to sing, with accurate relative pitch.
Verb
carry a tune (third-person singular simple present carries a tune, present participle carrying a tune, simple past and past participle carried a tune)
- To produce music, especially to sing, with accurate relative pitch.
- Jenny is named for a singer and Fanny for a beautiful dancer, but mother says they're both misfits, for Jenny can't carry a tune and Fanny's kind of stiff-legged.1903, Kate Douglas Wiggin, chapter 1, in Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm
- Emmett burst forth in song, but his comrade punched him in the side and said, “Lord Sakes, shut up, you can't carry a tune in a bucket.1922, Jim Tully, Emmett Lawler, page 209
Forms of carry a tune
| third-person singular present | carries a tune |
|---|---|
| present participle | carrying a tune |
| past participle | carried a tune |
| past | carried a tune |
Words formed from carry a tune
Questions about carry a tune
- What does carry a tune mean?
- Carry a tune means to produce music, especially to sing, with accurate relative pitch.
- What part of speech is carry a tune?
- Carry a tune is a verb.
- What is the past tense of carry a tune?
- The past tense of carry a tune is carried a tune.
Words near carry a tune in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: carry a tune (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-carry a tune.ogg.
Cite this entry: “carry a tune.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/carry_a_tune. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.