TONE DOWN • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Tone down

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/toʊn daʊn/ Listen

verb

Tone v. t. (past & past part. toned; pres. part. toning)

To utter with an affected tone.

To give tone, or a particular tone, to; to tune. See Tune, v. t.

(Photog.) To bring, as a print, to a certain required shade of color, as by chemical treatment.

To tone down.

(a)

To cause to give lower tone or sound; to give a lower tone to.

(b)

(Paint.) To modify, as color, by making it less brilliant or less crude; to modify, as a composition of color, by making it more harmonius. "Its thousand hues toned down harmoniusly."

(c)

Fig.: To moderate or relax; to diminish or weaken the striking characteristics of; to soften. "The best method for the purpose in hand was to employ some one of a character and position suited to get possession of their confidence, and then use it to tone down their religious strictures."

To tone up, to cause to give a higher tone or sound; to give a higher tone to; to make more intense; to heighten; to strengthen.

See images of 'Tone down'

Etymology of 'Tone down'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Tone down" Quotes from Famous Books

... friends and correspondents—some note on natural history to enter in his journal—some passage of Plato to unfold and illustrate—some golden thought of classic inspiration to inlay on his page—some bold image to tone down—some verse to retouch and harmonize. His life is on the whole innocent and happy, and a feeling of thankfulness to the Great Giver is breathed ...

— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray

... as a man dangerous to the peace of their society; and now they had a good occasion. Nor was it to be expected that the champion and apostle of Atheism—and Shelley was certainly both, in spite of Hogg's attempts to tone down the purpose of his document—should be unmolested in his propaganda by the aspirants to fat livings and ecclesiastical dignities. Real blame, however, attaches to these men: first, for their dulness to discern Shelley's amiable qualities; and, secondly, for the prejudgment of the case implied ...

— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... who was a director of St. Cyr, as well as one of the most noted characters of the age. She won his lasting regard. He was cheered by the warmth of her piety and her unwavering faith, while his more logical and better disciplined mind would no doubt moderate and tone down her excess of introspection and rapt emotion. She spent three happy years in Paris, consulted by many persons on religious matters, admired and honoured by several distinguished people, and sheltered from storm in the house of her daughter, now married to the Count de ...

— Excellent Women • Various

... or buy one. I would rather not build a house. Talboys built himself a house. You know Talboys. When I first met him, before he started building, he was a cheerful soul with a kindly word for everyone. The builder assures him that in another twenty years, when the colour has had time to tone down, his house will be a picture. At present it makes him bilious, the mere sight of it. Year by year, they tell him, as the dampness wears itself away, he will suffer less and less from rheumatism, ague, and lumbago. He has a hedge round the garden; it is eighteen ...

— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome

... have been kindly placed at my disposal by folk-lore friends. Among these, the tales reported by Mrs. Balfour, with a thorough knowledge of the peasants' mind and mode of speech, are a veritable acquisition. I only regret that I have had to tone down so much of dialect in her versions. She has added to my indebtedness to her by sending me several tales which are entirely new and inedited. Mrs. Gomme comes only second in rank among my creditors for thanks which I can scarcely pay without becoming ...

— More English Fairy Tales • Various

More quotes...