monotone

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A succession of sounds or words uttered in a single tone of voice.
2. n. Music A single tone repeated with different words or time values, especially in a rendering of a liturgical text.
3. n. Music A chant in a single tone.
4. n. Sameness or dull repetition in sound, style, manner, or color.
5. adj. Characterized by or uttered in a monotone: a monotone recitation of names.
6. adj. Of or having a single color: a cat with a monotone coat.
7. adj. Mathematics Designating sequences, the successive members of which either consistently increase or decrease but do not oscillate in relative value. Each member of a monotone increasing sequence is greater than or equal to the preceding member; each member of a monotone decreasing sequence is less than or equal to the preceding member.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. In rhetoric, a sameness of tone; the utterance of successive syllables at one unvaried pitch, with little or no inflection or cadence.
2. n. Monotony or sameness of style in writing or speaking.
3. n. In music:
4. n. A single tone, without harmony or variation in pitch.
5. n. Recitation of words in such a tone, especially in a church service, sometimes with harmonic accompaniment and with occasional inflections or melodic variations; intoning; chanting. Monotone is a natural device for increasing the sonority of the voice, so that it may readily fill a large space, and is also thought by some to have a peculiar solemnity of effect. It is much used as an element in chanting.
6. n. Something spoken or written in one tone or strain.
7. To recite in a single, unvaried tone; intone; chant. Strictly speaking, to monotone and to intone are not the same, the latter having a technical meaning in connection with Gregorian music; but in common usage they are made synonymous.
8. n. A single or uniform tint or color.

Wiktionary

1. adj. of speech or a sound having a single unvaried pitch
2. adj. mathematics property of a function to be either always decreasing or always increasing
3. n. A single unvaried tone of speech or a sound
4. v. transitive, intransitive To speak in a monotone.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Mus.) A single unvaried tone or sound.
2. n. (Rhet.) The utterance of successive syllables, words, or sentences, on one unvaried key or line of pitch.

WordNet 3.0

1. adj. of a sequence or function; consistently increasing and never decreasing or consistently decreasing and never increasing in value
2. adj. sounded or spoken in a tone unvarying in pitch
3. n. an unchanging intonation
4. n. a single tone repeated with different words or different rhythms (especially in rendering liturgical texts)