Word.ws English Dictionary

touch-tone

touch-tone adjective: relating to a type of telephone with buttons, each of which produces a tone which corresponds to the relevant digit.

Adjective

touch-tone (not comparable)

  1. Relating to a type of telephone with buttons, each of which produces a tone which corresponds to the relevant digit.

Noun

touch-tone (plural touch-tones)

  1. A telephone with buttons that produce tones, one for each digit.
    • a teleconference service for touch-tones only
  2. A tone produced by such a telephone.
    • software to decode touch-tones

Forms of touch-tone

Adjective
alternative formtouchtone
Noun
pluraltouch-tones

Origin of touch-tone

By genericization from the trade name Touch-Tone, 1960.

Phrases with touch-tone

Questions about touch-tone

What does touch-tone mean?
Touch-tone means relating to a type of telephone with buttons, each of which produces a tone which corresponds to the relevant digit.
What part of speech is touch-tone?
Touch-tone can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near touch-tone in the dictionary

  1. touch-papers
  2. touch-phone
  3. touch-phones
  4. touch-screen
  5. touch-screens
  6. touch-tone
  7. touch-tone dialing
  8. touch-tone dialling
  9. touch-tones
  10. touch-type
  11. touch-typed

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: touch-tone (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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Cite this entry: “touch-tone.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/touch-tone. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.