toneless

comparative more toneless · superlative most toneless

1. Lacking tone or expression.

   The Cumshewa totem poles were dark and colourless, the wood toneless from pouring rain.

   1941, Emily Carr, chapter 4, in Klee Wyck

   2 more examples

   And sure enough she had settled down at once, so that in less than two months it seemed to Stephen that Miss Puddleton must always have been at Morton, must always have been sitting at the large walnut table, must always have been saying in that dry, toneless voice with the Oxford accent: ‘You’ve forgotten something, Stephen,’ […]

   1928, Radclyffe Hall, The Well of Loneliness, Garden City, NY: Blue Ribbon Books, Book 1, Chapter 7, Section 2, p. 71

   Here standard acoustic instruments are played in ways that suggest electronic sound: violins whir and buzz, woodwinds produce a toneless breathiness and a gentle tapping evokes a heartbeat.

   2008 May 9, Allan Kozinn, “From Energetic Players, a Mix of Modernism”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 26 Nov 2022

2. Lacking vitality; listless; lifeless.
3. human sciencesLacking tone or pitch, have the neutral tone.