intonation

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act of intoning or chanting.
2. n. An intoned utterance.
3. n. A manner of producing or uttering tones, especially with regard to accuracy of pitch.
4. n. Linguistics The use of changing pitch to convey syntactic information: a questioning intonation.
5. n. A use of pitch characteristic of a speaker or dialect: "He could hear authority, the old parish intonation coming back into his voice” ( Graham Greene).
6. n. Music The opening phrase of a plainsong composition sung as a solo part.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A thundering; thunder.
2. n. Utterance of tones; mode of enunciation; modulation of the voice in speaking; also, expression of sentiment or emotion by variations of tone: as, his intonation was resonant or harsh.
3. n. The act of intoning or speaking with the singing voice; specifically, the use of musical tones in ecclesiastical delivery: as, the intonation of the litany.
4. n. In music: The process or act of producing tones in general or a particular series of tones, like a scale, especially with the voice. The term is often also used specifically to denote the relation in pitch of tones, however produced, to the key or the harmony to which they properly belong; and it is then applied both to vocal and to instrumental tones, and is characterized as pure, just, true, or as impure, false intonation.
5. n. In plain-song, the two or more notes leading up to the dominant or reciting-tone of a chant or melody, and usually sung by but one or a few voices. The proper intonation varies with the mode used, and also with the text to be sung.

Wiktionary

1. n. linguistics The rise and fall of the voice in speaking.
2. n. The act of sounding the tones of the musical scale.
3. n. Singing or playing in good tune or otherwise.
4. n. Reciting in a musical prolonged tone; intonating or singing of the opening phrase of a plain-chant, psalm, or canticle by a single voice, as of a priest.
5. n. A thundering; thunder.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. obsolete A thundering; thunder.
2. n. The act of sounding the tones of the musical scale.
3. n. Singing or playing in good tune or otherwise.
4. n. Reciting in a musical prolonged tone; intonating, or singing of the opening phrase of a plain-chant, psalm, or canticle by a single voice, as of a priest. See intone, v. t.
5. n. The manner of speaking, especially the placement of emphasis, the cadence, and the rise and fall of the pitch of the voice while speaking.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the act of singing in a monotonous tone
2. n. the production of musical tones (by voice or instrument); especially the exactitude of the pitch relations
3. n. rise and fall of the voice pitch
4. n. singing by a soloist of the opening piece of plainsong