How to use tonal in a sentence
20 example sentences · adjective, noun
Tonal means of or relating to tones or tonality. Example: “Songs for the family-table on Sabbaths and holidays—songs which give those various holy days tonal expression and which aim to spiritualize the meals.”
Examples of tonal by meaning
adjectiveOf or relating to tones or tonality.
- Songs for the family-table on Sabbaths and holidays—songs which give those various holy days tonal expression and which aim to spiritualize the meals.1929, Abraham Zevi Idelsohn, Jewish Music: Its Historical Development, page 358
nounAn animal companion which accompanies a person from birth to death.
- When a tonal suffers misfortune or death, the same thing happens to the person associated with it.1989, Robert Bartley Taylor, Indians of Middle America: an introduction to the ethnology of Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean...
More sentences with tonal
- The bass drop—like the tonic cadence in tonal music—has become a convention of the style.2017, Tom Perchard, From Soul to Hip Hop, →ISBN. From the entry bass drop
- Songs in a tonal language like Yoruba depend on tonological patterning for their beauty and euphony.2015, Niyi Oladeji, “Language as Tranquilizer: A Phonostylistic Study of Some Yoruba Lullabies”, in Paul Tench, editor, Studies in…. From the entry tonological
- But the shift is not only tonal or textural, from sweet green growth to fetid brown decay.1980, Enid Rhodes Peschel, Medicine and literature, page 197. From the entry rottedness
- 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. From the entry otonality
- This paper explores a critically understudied phenomenon, multilingual sociotonetic variation involving two contacting African tonal languages, Guinean Mano and Guinean Kpelle.2024, Maria Konoshenko, Maria Khachaturyan, “Final lowering in contacting African tone languages: A study of variation in postlexical…. From the entry sociotonetic
- In terms of tonal errors, another common mishap is the maudlin sobfest—an essay that's foolishly and tearfully sentimental.2008, Alan Gelb, Conquering the College Admissions Essay in 10 Steps: Crafting a Winning Personal Statement, Ten Speed Press, →ISBN, page 68. From the entry sobfest
- That broken comb exemplifies the apparently inexhaustible strength of the novel's flotsam, its disjunctive detail which makes nevertheless for tonal coherence.1985, John Jones, Dostoevsky, Oxford University Press, USA. From the entry disjunctive
- Mechanicals within the organ need repair; the tonal resources and much of the voicing might well be expanded and updated.1961, Thomas Scott Godfrey Burhrman, The American Organist - Volume 44, page 16. From the entry mechanical
- Between an asymmetrical bob and pixie cut, Houston paired her short hairdo with a glazed red lip, tonal purple eyeshadow, and chocolate blush.2024 September 8, India Espy-Jones, “17 Of Whitney Houston's Most Iconic Beauty Moments”, in ESSENCE. From the entry hairdo
- In other words, the acoustic markers of Blackness are not just about differentiating the vocal utterings and tonal inclinations of particular cultures.2019, Nina Eidsheim, Katherine Meizel, The Oxford Handbook of Voice Studies, page 217. From the entry soundingness
- Most final consonants have been lost, resulting in a tonal language with a rich consonantal and vocalic inventory, but with a relatively simple syllabic structure..2014, Guillaume Jacques, “V: Cone”, in Jackson Sun, editor, Phonological Profiles of Little-Studied Tibetic Varieties, Taipei: Academia…. From the entry syllabic
- This is exciting, high-strung, Horowitzian pianism that is tempered by unfailing good taste, tonal subtlety, and a true sense of Lisztian style.1991, The American record guide, volume 54, numbers 1-3. From the entry Horowitzian
- Fixed tonal systems find utonalities disturbing.1966, Jonas Mekas, Film Culture - Issues 40-42, page 6. From the entry utonality
- In classical voice training, and in the world of classical singing, voices are divided into categories dependent on timbre or tonal colour and tessitura or comfortable average pitch range.2014, Jane Streeton, Philip Raymond, Singing on Stage, A&C Black, →ISBN, page 146. From the entry tessitura
- The talking drum held under the arm had soft sides that yielded three different tonal pitches, high, middle, and low, according to the pressure of the arm.2004, Henry H. Mitchell, Black Church Beginnings. From the entry trinaural
- Eventually, the nonphonemic suprasegmental features became phonemic tonal distinctions as other sound changes occurred, such as loss of finals and changes in voicing of the initials.1995, M Alves, “Tonal features and the development of Vietnamese tones”, in Working Papers in Linguistics: Department of University of…. From the entry registrogenesis
- The term ‘downstep’ was first used to refer to certain well-known phenomena in African tone languages that vaguely resemble the tonal implementation phenomenon we describe here.1986, Mary E. Beckman, Janet B. Pierrehumbert, “Intonational structure in Japanese and English”, in Phonology Yearbook, volume 3, Great…. From the entry catathesis
- For reducing tonal noise, e.g., generated by engines and propellers, the reference microphone can be replaced by a nonacoustic reference sensor, e.g., a tachometer or an optical or inductive sensor.2002, Gillian M. Davis, Noise Reduction in Speech Applications, →ISBN, page 313. From the entry nonacoustic
Meaning of tonal
- adjective Of or relating to tones or tonality.
- adjective Of or relating to the general character, mood, or trend of something.
- adjective Employing tones that have a predictable relationship to some tonic.
Questions about tonal in a sentence
- How do you use tonal in a sentence?
- Tonal is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “Songs for the family-table on Sabbaths and holidays—songs which give those various holy days tonal expression and which aim to spiritualize the meals.”
- What is a short sentence with tonal?
- “Fixed tonal systems find utonalities disturbing.”
- What does tonal mean?
- Tonal means of or relating to tones or tonality.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tonal (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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