whole tones
whole tones is the plural of whole tone.
Meaning of whole tone
Noun
whole tone (plural whole tones)
- The musical interval equal (exactly or approximately) to a frequency ratio of 8/7, 9/8, or 10/9, depending on the tuning system used. In meantone tunings (including twelve-tone equal temperament), there is only one whole tone, though tuning systems that are not meantone have a "major tone" of 9/8 and a "minor tone" of 10/9.
- Synonyms:
- tone, whole step
Questions about whole tones
- What is whole tones the plural of?
- Whole tones is the plural of whole tone.
Words near whole tones in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: whole tones (page history and authors); whole 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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “whole tones.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/whole_tones. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
