Etymology

semitone

S1E1M3I1T1O1N1E1

Today it means: One of two parts, equal or unequal, in which a whole tone is divided. Full definition →

English tone ← Middle English tone ← Latin tonus
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*sem-
  2. Proto-Indo-European*sēmi
  3. Latinsēmi-
  4. Englishsemi-
  5. Proto-Indo-European*ten-
  6. Proto-Indo-European*tónos
  7. Proto-Hellenic*tónos
  8. Ancient Greekτόνος (tónos)
  9. Latintonus
  10. Middle Englishtone
  11. Englishtone
  12. English todaysemitone

From semi- + tone.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.