Etymology

intone

I1N1T1O1N1E1

Today it means: To give tone or variety of tone to; to vocalize. Full definition →

Middle English entune ← Old French entoner ← Medieval Latin intonō
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Medieval Latin · derived fromintonō
  2. Old French · derived fromentoner
  3. Middle English · inherited fromentune
  4. English todayintone

From Middle English entune, entone, from Old French entoner, from Medieval Latin intonō, from in- (inchoative prefix) + tonus (“pitch, tone”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix); doublet of intonate. Cognate with French entonner, Italian intonare.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.