Word.ws English Dictionary

otonality

otonality noun: a family of pitches that can all be expressed as ratios with a specified fixed tone, such that all ratios have the same denominator.

Noun

otonality (plural otonalities)

  1. A family of pitches that can all be expressed as ratios with a specified fixed tone, such that all ratios have the same denominator.
    • Multiples up from otonalities, whereas divisors change the harmonic center and introduce new tonal sense (utonality).1966, Jonas Mekas, Film Culture - Issues 40-42, page 6
    • A similar correlation is evident in the physical layout of the Kithara II, which consists of twelve banks of six strings, each bank tuned to a specific, although incomplete, otonality or utonality.1982, Percussive Notes - Volume 21, page 71

Forms of otonality

pluralotonalities

Questions about otonality

What does otonality mean?
Otonality means a family of pitches that can all be expressed as ratios with a specified fixed tone, such that all ratios have the same denominator.
What part of speech is otonality?
Otonality is a noun.
What is the plural of otonality?
The plural of otonality is otonalities.

Words near otonality in the dictionary

  1. Oton
  2. Otonabee
  3. Otonabee-South Monaghan
  4. otonal
  5. otonalities
  6. otonality
  7. otonecine
  8. otoneurologic
  9. otoneurological
  10. otoneurologically
  11. otoneurologist

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: otonality (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.

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