tune

Etymology

From Middle English tune, an unexplained variant of tone^[1], borrowed from Old French ton, from Latin tonus, from Ancient Greek τόνος (tónos, “a tone”). Doublet of tone, ton, and tonus.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /tjuːn/, /tʃuːn/

  • Audio (UK)

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /t(j)un/

  • Audio (US)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -uːn
• Homophone: chewn (among those with Yod-coalescence in stressed syllables)

Noun

tune (countable and uncountable, plural tunes)

1. A melody.
2. A song, or short musical composition.
3. (informal) The act of tuning or maintenance.

   Your engine needs a good tune.

4. The state or condition of being correctly tuned.

   Your engine is now in tune.

   This piano is not in tune.

5. (Britain, slang) A very good song.

   You heard the new Rizzle Kicks song? —Mate, that is a tune!

6. (obsolete) A sound; a note; a tone.
   • Shakespeare

     the tune of your voices

7. (obsolete) Order; harmony; concord.
   • John Locke

     A child will learn three times as much when he is in tune, as when he […] is dragged unwillingly to [his task].

Verb

tune (third-person singular simple present tunes, present participle tuning, simple past and past participle tuned)

1. To modify a musical instrument so that it produces the correct pitches.

   to tune a piano or a violin

   • 1568, William Cornishe [i.e., William Cornysh], “In the Fleete Made by Me William Cornishe otherwise Called Nyshwhete Chapelman with the Most Famose and Noble Kyng Henry the VII. His Reygne the XIX. Yere the Moneth of July. A Treatise betwene Trouth, and Information.”, in John Skelton, J[ohn] S[tow], editor, Pithy Pleasaunt and Profitable Workes of Maister Skelton, Poete Laureate, Imprinted at London: In Fletestreate, neare vnto Saint Dunstones Churche by Thomas Marshe, OCLC 54747393; republished as Pithy Pleasaunt and Profitable Workes of Maister Skelton, Poete Laureate to King Henry the VIIIth, London: Printed for C. Davis in Pater-noster Row, 1736, OCLC 731569711, page 290:

     The Harpe. […] A harper with his wreſt maye tune the harpe wrong / Mys tunying of an Inſtrument ſhal hurt a true ſonge

   • 1681, John Dryden, The Spanish Friar, or the Double Discovery, London: Richard Tonson & Jacob Tonson, Act II, p. 21,

     She bids me hope; oh Heav’ns; she pities me!

     And pity still foreruns approching love;

     As Lightning does the Thunder! Tune your Harps

     Ye Angels to that sound […]

2. To adjust a mechanical, electric or electronic device (such as a radio or a car engine) so that it functions optimally.
3. To make more precise, intense, or effective; to put into a proper state or disposition.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)

4. To give tone to; to attune; to adapt in style of music; to make harmonious.
   • 1645, John Milton, “The Passion” in Poems of Mr. John Milton, both English and Latin, London: Humphrey Moseley, p. 17,

     For now to sorrow must I tune my song,

     And set my Harpe to notes of saddest wo,

5. To sing with melody or harmony.
   • c. 1594, William Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act IV, Scene 3,

     To see great Hercules whipping a gig,

     And profound Solomon to tune a jig,

   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, London, Book 5, lines 195-196,

     Fountains and yee, that warble, as ye flow,

     Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.

6. (South Africa, slang, transitive) To cheek; to be impudent towards.

   Are you tuning me?

Further reading

• tune in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• tune in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

References

Anagrams

• neut, neut.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tyn/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

Noun

tune f (plural tunes)

1. (slang) Alternative spelling of thune

Further reading

• “tune” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• tenu

Verb

tune

1. First-person singular present of tunen.
2. First-person singular subjunctive I of tunen.
3. Third-person singular subjunctive I of tunen.
4. Imperative singular of tunen.

Noun

tune

1. sand

Verb

tune

1. first-person singular present subjunctive of tunar
2. third-person singular present subjunctive of tunar
3. first-person singular imperative of tunar
4. third-person singular imperative of tunar

Pronoun

tune (personal, second person singular)

1. you

tune m (possessive) (Feminine: toje

1. your