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Tune   Listen
noun
Tune  n.  
1.
A sound; a note; a tone. "The tune of your voices."
2.
(Mus.)
(a)
A rhythmical, melodious, symmetrical series of tones for one voice or instrument, or for any number of voices or instruments in unison, or two or more such series forming parts in harmony; a melody; an air; as, a merry tune; a mournful tune; a slow tune; a psalm tune. See Air.
(b)
The state of giving the proper sound or sounds; just intonation; harmonious accordance; pitch of the voice or an instrument; adjustment of the parts of an instrument so as to harmonize with itself or with others; as, the piano, or the organ, is not in tune. "Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh."
3.
Order; harmony; concord; fit disposition, temper, or humor; right mood. "A child will learn three times as much when he is in tune, as when he... is dragged unwillingly to (his task)."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Tune" Quotes from Famous Books



... meeting. A certain Mr Ramji Lal had been asked to read a paper on the revival of Indian arts and crafts. Dyan had been looking forward to it keenly; but now, sore and miserable as he was—all sense of purpose and direction gone—he felt out of tune with the ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... Dufenaldum regis Malcolmi fratrem Scotti sibi in regem elegerunt, et omnes Anglos qui de curia regis extiterunt, de Scotia expulerunt. Quibus auditis, filius regis Malcolmi Dunechan regem Willelmum, cui tune militavit, ut ei regnum sui patris concederet, petiit, et impetravit, illique fidelitatem juravit. Et sic ad Scotiam cum multitudine Anglorum et Normannorum properavit, et patruum suum Dufenaldum de regno expulit, et in loco ejus regnavit. Deinde ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait

... a charm, such a chime, Out of tune, out of time. Oh, the jangling and the wrangling ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... A tune is not so slender so that a large surface has aspiration. The darkness and the light that is used is all the second day ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein

... remember it very well.'—'Well,' said he, 'I didn't know exactly what I wanted you to go for then. Now I will tell you what let's do; you sing "Coronation," and I'll join with you.' So we sang together the old tune, and also "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." Then I sang "Old John Brown," he marching around the room and joining in the chorus after ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 3 • Various

... the Wesleyan hymns. Sometimes in her delirium she even fitted the words of one on to the tune ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore

... in their canoes, at a point about five miles from the Fort, and, so far as they could tell, without being seen. Then ammunition went round, and they marched upon the Fort. Pierre eyed Macavoy—measured him, as it were, for what he was worth. The giant seemed happy. He was humming a tune softly through his beard. Suddenly Jose paused, dropped to the foot of a pine, and put his ear to it. Pierre understood. He had caught at the same thing. "There is a dance on," said Jose, "I can ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... section. No. 3 opens with a Prelude, and a note states that "in this and other Preludes, which are meant as extempore touches before the Lesson begins, neither the composer nor performer are oblig'd to a Strictness of Tune." The pleasing Allegro which follows shows the influence of Scarlatti-Handel. The sonata concludes with an attractive Minuet and variations. No. 5, with its graceful Gavotta, and No. 7 might be performed ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock

... of souls romantic Are out of date as an old wife's rune. Britain is doomed as Plato's Republic—" When in at the door came a lilting tune! ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... I agreed with them; but I came away early, not caring to encounter the handsome Frenchman again, and I re-entered the gates of the Fair City a little out of tune, and wandered about the brightly-illuminated and beautiful Court of Honour, finding, for the first time in this place, that time was dragging, and wishing it were time to meet Dave, and begin what I knew would be a ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch

... on to sing, which he did of Norway with tremendous enthusiasm and noise but little melody. Then another man sang a love-ditty in a very gruff voice and much out of tune, which, nevertheless, to the man's evident satisfaction, was laughingly applauded. After him a sentimental youth sang, in a sweet tenor voice, an Icelandic air, and then Tyrker was called on to do his ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne

... a matter of comparison, you know," said she. "If one is ugly and misshapen, all she has to do is to surround herself with things ugly and misshapen, and she gets the effect of perfect harmony, which is the highest beauty in the world. Here I am in harmony after I have been out of tune. It is a comfort. But, after all, being out of tune is not the worst thing in the world. It might be worse. I would not make the world over to suit me, but myself to suit the world, if I could. After all, the world is right and I am wrong, but in here ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... that he would have escaped her cane a second time, if his wits, and a slice of good fortune, had not come to his assistance. In the midst of his palpitating 'There, there, my lady! My dear good lady!' his tune changed on a sudden to 'See; they are parting! They are parting already. And—and I think—I really think—indeed, my lady, I am sure that she has refused him! She has not ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... A drowsy tune; The flickering green of leaves that keep The light of June; Peace, through a slumbering afternoon, ...
— Silhouettes • Arthur Symons

... scheme, which is this:—I will start for the West as a Limited Lecturing Co., And the public invite in the same to invest to the tune of a million or so: They will all be recouped for initial expense by receiving their share of the "gates," Which I venture to think will be truly immense when I lecture on Prose ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley

... shrugged her shoulders. "I, too, like good music, dear; but I do not think the want of it should keep me from church." Mary again shrugged her shoulders, remembering, as she did so, that her sister-in-law did not know one tune from another. Lady Alice was the only one of the family who ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope

... murmurs creep,' The reader's threatened (not in vain) with 'sleep': Then, at the last and only couplet fraught With some unmeaning thing they call a thought, A needless Alexandrine ends the song, That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along. Leave such to tune their own dull rhymes, and know What's roundly smooth or languishingly slow; And praise the easy vigour of a line, Where Denham's strength, and Waller's sweetness join. True ease in writing comes from art, not chance. As those move easiest who have learned to dance. 'Tis not enough ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... the same tune," responded the woman; "he repeats that he is in the service of Don Mariano de Silva; and that he is the bearer of a message to that mad Colonel, as you call him, ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid

... presentation of them, there needs a lively harmony among certain faculties, a rhythm in the mind. Hence Cicero said that to write prose well, one must be able to write verse. The utterance of music in song or tune, in artful melody or choral harmony, is but the consummation of a power which is ever a sweetener in life's healthily active exhibitions, the power of sound. Nature is alive with music. In the fields, in the air, sound is a token of life. On high, bare, ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert

... recess on summer day she sought And sat to tune her lute; but all night long Quiet had from her pillow flown, and thought Feverish and tired, ...
— Zophiel - A Poem • Maria Gowen Brooks

... peninsula! A quarter of the energy they are about to develop for the sake of getting back a few miles of la belle France could give us Asia; Africa; the Balkans; the Black Sea; the mouths of the Danube: it would enable us to swap rifles for wheat with the Russians; more vital still, it would tune up the hearts of the Russian soldiery ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton

... on the concession of full financial powers to an Ireland unrepresented at Westminster. In their own interests, if not for very shame, Englishmen should decline to make use of the old adage, that "he who pays the piper should call the tune." For more than a century Ireland paid the piper and England called the tune—and what a tune, and with what results! Representation has nothing to do with the case. Precedents are needless, but there are, as a fact, many. Crown Colonies have ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers

... their "pruning hooks" into swords. My postcards written in German have all come back. One cannot communicate with anyone outside Altheim. What a position! God in His mercy help us! It seems so strange to see German troops marching to the tune of "God Save the King," yet it is Germany's National Anthem too, and these are the ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson

... the day's work all over again without a night's rest in between. As for Wagner, that would be worse than straightening out an intricate account after a day spent in poring over a ledger. No. Music without any tune to it may be all right for some people, but comic opera is "good enough" for you. You like that coon song you heard the other night. How you would enjoy playing it on the pianoforte if you only knew how! But you don't, so you have to pay a speculator ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb

... be, but she sang with them in her heart, for she had long since caught the tune, and how intently the soldiers would have listened if it had been possible for her to raise her voice as usual! Amid the singing of all these men her clear, bell-like tones would have risen like the lark soaring from the grain field, and what a storm of applause would have greeted ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... again.] I go hence now to tune my harp; Olaf Liljekrans is up in the mountain,—there shall his wedding be held.—Mad Thorgjerd must also be there; he can make tables and benches dance, so stirring is the music he plays. But you, take you heed; go you home again; it is not safe for you here. Have you not ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen

... flames up-sprout And twine about The brazen dogs that guard my hearth And household worth: Tinge with the ember's ruddy glow The rafters low; And let the sparks snap with delight, As ringers might That mark deft measures of some tune The children croon: Then, with good friends, the rarest few Thou holdest true, Ranged round about the blaze, to share My comfort there,— Give me to claim the service meet That makes each seat A place of honor, and each guest Loved as ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley

... last phrase, as her Valkyria came abreast of her, Elfgiva spoke pettishly: "You see fit to sing a different tune from what you did when you tried to hinder me from this undertaking. I should have brighter hopes if I had not given ear to your advice to send a messenger ahead. If I could have come upon him before he had time to work himself into ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... said. "That man in the pew in front of us spoils the service for me. His voice is harsh and he has no idea of a tune. Can't you ask him to change ...
— Best Short Stories • Various

... blissfully untroubled by the need of orthography, and scribbled steadily over four pages, her lips moving all the time to such tune as "'so we went down the gully and ferns, such a lot. And I got the best of all, and it's under the house for you in a tin from Anna, and all of it's for you in the bushhouse at our proper house ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner

... piano tuned about every two months; whether it is used or not, the strain is always upon it, and if it is not kept up to concert pitch it will not stand in tune when required, which it will do if it be ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous

... paid to Curate or Rector, for preaching a sermon on New Year's Day, from a text mentioned in his will. To Parish Clerk 10s. 6d. to sing 100th Psalm, old version, same day. To organist 10s. 6d. for playing tune to same. To Sexton 10s. 6d. if he attend the same; and to master and mistress of the free-school, each 10s. 6d. for attending the charity children at the same time and place; and to the Trustees of the school ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 469. Saturday January 1, 1831 • Various

... in order to make them understand this, or make them willing to understand it, to use much time and energy; and they finally approved of it as if they were doing me some great honor. By this event your Majesty may see to what tune the affairs of war were going, with demands and responses. God was pleased to bring it about that the information which I sent from Macan caused the Chinese not to collect any fleet in China for ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson

... had fallen into the hands of sharpers, who held him up until he paid—no uncommon thing in London. Card-sharpers are generally blackmailers as well, and no doubt these people were bleeding poor Jack to a very considerable tune. ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux

... it is a combination of shops, where everything you don't want is to be found in a state of dilapidation, together with a very hungry-looking proprietor, who, for want of customers upon whom to exercise his ingenuity, pulls away all day long upon the accordion to the tune of We're a' noddin'. The other end of Our Terrace has its butcher, its public-house, its grocer, and a small furniture-shop, doing a small trade, under the charge of a very small boy. Let thus much suffice ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various

... guffaw, then stopped as if he had been choked. Stocky, red in the face, told a funny story when commanded by the Boy, and then dissolved in mortification over his blunders. The Fiddling Boss obediently got down his fiddle from the smoky corner beside the fireplace and played a weird old tune or two, and then they sang. First the men, with hoarse, quavering approach and final roar of wild sweetness; then Margaret and the Boy in duet, and finally Margaret alone, with a few bashful chords on the fiddle, feeling ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... the Rockies will develop a love for nature, strengthen one's appreciation of the beautiful world outdoors, and put one in tune with the Infinite. It will inspire one with the feeling that the Rockies have a rare mountain wealth of their own. They are not to be compared with the Selkirks or the Alps or any other unlike range of mountains. The Rockies are not a type, but ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills

... changed the tune and spoke a sharp word in Italian to the monkey. Instantly the creature went to the front of the platform, took off his cap, bowed to the audience with hand and cap upon his heart, ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison

... also compiled from Henry and Scott a Bible which has gone through many editions, and has commanded a sale of not fewer than 60,000 or 70,000 copies. First published in folio form, it had been sold within seven years to the tune of 36,000 copies, and thousands of working men were enabled from the cheapness with which it was issued, to possess themselves of this Bible who might otherwise never have had a Family Bible in their houses. The first edition was issued in 1851, ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans

... of my entire tour, to hear a company of sailors chime in one evening and sing "Kiss Me Mother, Kiss Your Darling." I had heard little English speaking for months, and now to hear that old familiar tune, five thousand miles away from home, made me feel as if America could after all not be so very far off! There were no storms, nor was their any cool night air upon that "summer seat." I slept one night on deck, without even an awning of canvass ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner

... ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon. This sea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like springing flowers— For this, for everything, we are out of tune. It moves us not. Great God! I'd rather be A pagan suckled in a creed outworn, So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, Or hear old Triton ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... are fighting with us, John Gay. The 'Beggar's Opera'—'tis mainly the Dean's idea—the title alone is vastly fine—will give you all the chance in the world. Pray do not forget the Dean's verses he sent you 't'other day. They must be set to good music, though for my own part I know not one tune from another." ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce

... called "a pretty tune," she knew nothing whatever of music, understood less. And yet, almost from that first moment, she imderstood Ben Cohen, realising him as lover and child: imderstood him better, maybe, then than she did later on: losing her sure-ness for a while, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various

... the dewy freshness of the hour, the morning rapture of the birds, the daily miracle of sunrise, set her heart in tune, and gave her Nature's most healing balm. She kept the little house in order, with Mrs. Sterling to direct and share the labor so pleasantly, that mistress and maid soon felt like mother and daughter, and Christie often said she did not care ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... in subjects, a duplication of treatment, or interchange between the arts of poetry and painting characterise Pre-Raphaelite work. For example, Morris' poems, "The Blue Closet" and "The Tune of Seven Towers" were inspired by the similarly entitled designs of Rossetti. They are interpretations in language of pictorial suggestions—"word-paintings" in a truer meaning than that much-abused piece of critical slang commonly bears. In one of these compositions—a water-colour, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... mind as I finished dressing, and I said to myself that Father Chaufour had a right to reparation from me. To make amends for the feeling of ill-will I had against him just now, I owed him some explicit proof of sympathy. I heard him humming a tune in his room; he was at work, and I determined that I would make the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... for any one to whom I could impart the intelligence— there was no one whom I could expect to sympathise with me, or to whom I could pour out the abundance of my joy; for that the service prohibited. What could I do? Why I could dance; so I sprung from my chair, and singing the tune, commenced a Quadrille movement,—"Tal de ral la, tal de ral la, lity, lity, lity, liddle-um, ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... place. The prince drove in his own carriage, and I in a wretched little droshky, hired for an immense sum for this solemn occasion. I am not going to describe that ball. Everything about it was just as it always is. There was a band, with trumpets extraordinarily out of tune, in the gallery; there were country gentlemen, greatly flustered, with their inevitable families, mauve ices, viscous lemonade; servants in boots trodden down at heel and knitted cotton gloves; provincial lions with spasmodically contorted ...
— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... echo to the sense.'" "I am pleased and proud," answered Macgowran, "that it has afforded you any amusement: and when you, Sir," addressing himself to the Dean, "put all the strings of the Irish harp in tune, it will yield your Reverence a double pleasure, and perhaps put me out of my senses with joy." Macgowran, in a short time, presented the Dean with a literal translation, for which he rewarded him very liberally, and recommended him to the protection of Mr. ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous

... is a natural musician, and cannot only sing in tune, but can take a part "by ear." The man with the balaleika, or garmonka, is always sure of an admiring audience, whether in town or village; and there is not a tiny hamlet in the empire but resolves itself, on holidays, into a pair of choral societies—one for male and one for female voices—which ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... who, hitherto, had been looking on, in silence, began to imitate his comrade. They then sang, in chorus, the word, "hejaw! hejaw!" After this had continued, with increasing energy, for several minutes, the tune was suddenly changed to one of shrill notes, in which the words "weehee! weehee!" were uttered with great rapidity. They then approached each other, by slipping their feet forward: they grinned, and, in great ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley

... to greet them, and there was the brass band of which Hickory Ridge was getting to be quite proud, playing a sonorous tune which some of the scouts believed must be "Lo! the Conquering Hero Comes," though none of them felt quite sure ...
— Afloat - or, Adventures on Watery Trails • Alan Douglas

... of Dr. Woodpecker he tapped at the hollow oak chest, sounded the Baron's heart of oak, pronounced him true to the core, whacked him, smacked him, insisted upon his calling out "Ninety-nine," in various tones, so that it sounded like a duet to the old words, without much of the tune...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, 13 June 1891 • Various

... can graciously gaze on this wax cylinder," he said. "On here we hev scrawled—written—a tune played by a cornet. It is 'Home, Sweet Home.' Ye've ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... deplorably defective ear. My uncle Sandy, who was profoundly skilled in psalmody, had done his best to make a singer of me; but he was at length content to stop short, after a world of effort, when he had, as he thought, brought me to distinguish St. George's from any other psalm-tune. On the introduction, however, of a second tune into the parish church that repeated the line at the end of the stanza, even this poor fragment of ability deserted me; and to this day—though I rather like the strains of the bagpipe in general, and have no objection ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... not capable of following it. Noble souls like ours comprehend each other with half a word, and you are a poet whenever it suits you. When in the course of the day you have transacted a neat little piece of business, after having rubbed your hands until you have almost deprived them of skin, you tune your violin, which you play like an angel, and you draw from it such delightful strains that your ledger and your cash-box fall to weeping with emotion. I, too, am a musician, and my music is the fair sex. But, alas! ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... feared that they were filled up. "Oh, we'll bring you in as the weight in Libra," was the instant remark of Douglas. A noisy fellow had long interrupted a company in which he was. At last the bore said of a certain tune, "It carries me away with it." "For God's sake," said Jerrold, "let somebody whistle it."—Such dicteria, as the Romans called them, bristled over his talk. And he flashed them out with an eagerness, and a quiver of his large, somewhat coarse mouth, which it was quite ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... amid such luxuriant vegetation that they become conspicuous by their absence. Now and again, however, the ears are gratefully saluted by the trilling and sustained notes of some hidden songster, whose music is entirely in tune with the surrounding loveliness, but truly delightful song-birds have ever been rare in the low latitudes, where there is more of ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... verse of Chaucer," he wrote, "I confess, is not harmonious to us. They who lived with him, and some time after him, thought it musical; and it continues so, even in our judgment, if compared with the numbers of Lydgate and Gower, his contemporaries: there is a rude sweetness of a Scotch tune in it, which is natural and pleasing, though not perfect." At the same time, it is no doubt necessary, in order to verify the correctness of a less balanced judgment, to take the trouble, which, if it could but be believed, is by no means great, to master the rules and usages of Chaucerian ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward

... "In tune therewith saith also another prophet, 'The great day of the Lord is near, and hasteth greatly. The bitter and austere voice of the day of the Lord hath been appointed. A mighty day of wrath is that day, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of blackness ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... in the shadow, but he could see without turning his head that her bosom heaved and heaved. She was touched,—she understood. With a rush came a thought that the splendid song symbolized their relation. It was he who stood at the gate, alone, and called her out from "the dancers dancing in tune." He had almost wearied of calling, but she ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various

... Millinborn to the heart. I have every reason to believe that that murder was witnessed by this very man I am sending to Canada. He persists in denying that he saw anything, but later he may change his tune." ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... sure there is much truth in this, for I have heard of sceptics putting it to the test, and of "singing to quite a different tune" when the phantasms of those they knew quite well suddenly shot up from the ground, and, gliding past them, vanished at the threshold of the church. Occasionally, too, I have been informed of cases where the watchers have seen ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell

... this rag doll, Jim," he said to one of the other painters, "She's a daisy," and he took Raggedy Ann by the hands and danced with her while he whistled a lively tune. Raggedy Ann's heels hit the floor thumpity-thump and she enjoyed ...
— Raggedy Ann Stories • Johnny Gruelle

... of the Regent, so long, so artfully, and so cruelly offended, troubled him all the more because he felt they deserved severe punishment. He soon, therefore, conceived the idea of screening himself beneath his wife's petticoats. His replies, and all his observations were to the same tune; perfect ignorance of everything. Therefore when the Duchess had made her confessions, and they were communicated to him, he cried out against his wife,—her madness, her felony,—his misfortune in having a wife capable of conspiring, and daring enough to implicate him in everything without ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... and compensation to the tune of fifty thousand duros. Spain is a country where a man may speak out save in the matters which the Holy ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... Mr. Fox. "We ought to go off in the woods, where nobody can hear us, until we learn a tune. Then we can come and play for your mother. But I wouldn't say anything to her about the fife-and-drum corps if I were ...
— The Tale of Billy Woodchuck • Arthur Scott Bailey

... could be interesting beyond most men. She had realised terribly how interesting he was after he had fled; when men came about her and talked to her in many ways, with many variations, but always with the one tune behind all they said; always making for the one goal, whatever the point from which they started or however circuitous ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... made by a ninny On some little song with a popular tune, Not worth a halfpenny, sold for a guinea, And sung in the Strand by the light of the moon. I'd never sigh for the sense of a Pliny, (Who cares for sense at St. James's in June?) I'd be a Parody, made by a ninny, And sung in the Strand by the light ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various

... of Fiddler's Race, off Yarmouth. Whenever duty permitted us, our fiddles were never idle. My performance was not very scientific, certainly; but I learned to play, after some months' scraping, many a merry tune, such as would make the men kick up their heels irresistibly when ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston

... Montrose at Philiphaugh; the verses, which follow are a lamentation for his final discomfiture and cruel death. The present edition of "The Gallant Grahams" is given from tradition, enlarged and corrected by an ancient printed edition, entitled, "The Gallant Grahams of Scotland" to the tune of "I will away, and I will not tarry," of which Mr Ritson favoured the ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott

... the learned tongues, both spoken in all probability with almost equal facility by the writer, is naturally not uncommon in the Middle Ages: and it helps to explain the rapid transference of the Latin hymn-rhythms to vernacular verse. Thus we have a Noel or Christmas poem not only written to the tune and in the measure of a Latin hymn, In hoc anni circulo, not only crowning the Provencal six-syllable triplets with a Latin refrain, "De virgine Maria," and other variations on the Virgin's title and name, but with Latin verses alternate to the Provencal ones. This same arrangement ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury

... Grover boys, an' Mary an' Sarah Speed. An' Mis' Becker was real pleasant to us: she passed round some cake, an' handed us sap sugar on one of her best plates, an' we played games an' sung some pieces too. Mis' Becker thought we did real well. I can pick out most of a tune on the cabinet organ; teacher says she'll ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett

... his enemy. The factor sprang up, and threw the bags, full of money, into a loft. Rob Roy entered, with the usual salutations, laid down his sword, and sat down to partake of the entertainment. No sooner was the repast ended, than he desired his piper to strike up a tune. In a few minutes, by this signal, six armed men entered the room; when Rob Roy, taking hold of his sword, asked the factor, "How he had prospered in his collection of the rents?" "I have got nothing yet," replied the trembling Killearn; "I have not begun to collect." ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson

... as a piccolo the air of a recently published waltz. After a few bars he sprang to his feet and—still whistling—quickly shoved the table and chairs to the wall, clearing the middle of the floor. The tune stopped long enough for him ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard

... seemed to shout. In one street we came on three English soldiers who were carrying a piano out of a house and lifting it onto a hand-cart. They stopped to stare at us, and we stared back. It seemed an age since we had seen a living being! One of the soldiers scrambled into the cart and tapped out a tune on the cracked key-board, and we all laughed with relief at the foolish noise... Then we walked on ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton

... not occur to her that she was pale. 'Don't forget to——' But she had forgotten what Ethel was not to forget. Her head reeled as it lay firmly on the pillow. The waves were waves of sound now, and they developed into a rhythm, a tune. She had barely time to discover that the tune was the Blue Danube Waltz, and that she was dancing, when the whole world came ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett

... charming little animals?" Never! Oh, a very big Never Again! And yet the next time shall you not find it a temptation to go just out of curiosity to find out what the newest artfully enticing little tune of the Pied Pipers ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post

... power creates, true harmony! O'er a delicious and mysterious sea, The exulting spirit glides, As some bold swimmer sports in Ocean's tides: But oh, the mischief that is wrought, If but one accent out of tune Assaults the ear! Alas, how soon Our ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi

... kept their court here, is doubtful, and must be meant of the West Saxons only. And as to the tale of King Arthur's Round Table, which they pretend was kept here for him and his two dozen of knights (which table hangs up still, as a piece of antiquity to the tune of twelve hundred years, and has, as they pretend, the names of the said knights in Saxon characters, and yet such as no man can read), all this story I see so little ground to give the least credit to that I look upon it, and it shall please you, to ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe

... on!" he repeated as he placed the jewelled ring wonderingly upon his bow-finger and watched it sparkle and laugh in the light as he pretended to play a tune. "She is always joking like ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.

... horrible suspicion. The logic of events ran through his head like a hateful tune which he could ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes

... what ta young Chief says. She sailed ta poat peautifully, only ta next tune she mustna pull oot ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn

... The Flurry tune which was played is a peculiar one, evidently of great antiquity, and probably the custom had its origin as far back as the feast of Flora, when pagan rites were performed in the country, or, perhaps, it originally was instituted to celebrate a victory over the Saxons; ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston

... be deceived in this book. It is nothing but a handful of rustic variations on the old tune of "Rest and be thankful," a record of unconventional travel, a pilgrim's scrip with a few bits of blue-sky philosophy in it. There is, so far as I know, very little useful information and absolutely no criticism of the universe to be found in this volume. So if you are what Izaak ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... ancient landmarks and set up others."—Id. "It is certainly much better to supply defects and abridge superfluities by occasional notes and observations, than to disorganize or greatly alter a system which has been so long established."—Id. "To have only one tune, or measure, is not much better than to have none at all."—Dr. Blair cor. "Facts too well known and too obvious to be insisted on."—Id. "In proportion as all these circumstances are happily chosen, and are ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... so I ups agin once more near the rooks, to brush up a bit; but there it is agin the same old tune, the whole blessed day, rain, rain, rain. It's rained all day and don't talk of stoppin' nother. How I hate the sound, and how streaked I feel. I don't mind its huskin' my voice, for there is no one to talk to, but cuss it, ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... down the street, lighting their way with large bamboo torches. They were marching along almost noiselessly to the tune of a guitar. ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal

... The practice of translating {hot spot}s from an {HLL} into hand-tuned assembler, as opposed to trying to coerce the compiler into generating better code. Both the term and the practice are becoming uncommon. See {tune}, {bum}, {by hand}; syn. with v. {cruft}. 2. More generally, manual construction or patching of data sets that would normally be generated by a translation utility and interpreted by another program, and aren't really designed to be ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10

... sweetness, and of the noise of shouting, and then he sang his own grief and the grief of all the Fianna. And at that the Grey Man said it would not be long before he would put the whole of the Fianna to death; and then Daire played a tune of heavy shouts of lamentation. And then at Finn's bidding he played the music of sweet strings for ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory

... and got back to the serious side of the subject. "It's somethin' t' make a critter think," he declared. "Take white folks an' Injuns, f'r instance. They ain't never rightly understood each other, 'cause they ain't never bin rightly in tune with each other, an' that's another way o' sayin' they ain't bin in symp'thy. An' th' only way they could get that way would be t' tell, outspoke, what they thinks o' each other. Now they's Injun, here. He's bin our friend for some time, an' we bin his, ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart

... dwelling in rents of the ground caused by excessive heat. It was not known in the time of our fore-fathers, but now it is very common in Apulia ... and is generally called Tarantula. Its bite seldom kills a man, yet it makes him half stupid, and affects him in a variety of ways. Some, when a song or tune is heard, are so excited that they dance, full of joy and always laughing, and do not stop till they are entirely exhausted; others spend a miserable life in tears, as if bewailing the loss of friends. Some die laughing, and ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... the giant's death, Mr. Scrawler, one day when the ship was becalmed, and the sailors wished to be amused, fell into a poetic frenzy, and produced the following song, which all hands sung, (rather slowly) when Mr. Nabbum was not present, to the tune of Yankee Doodle:— ...
— The Last of the Huggermuggers • Christopher Pierce Cranch

... pavement at his feet. A priest came by, then a lawyer, then a poet; but the sbirro made no sign. At last there appeared a young officer, dressed in brilliant uniform, who passed gaily along, humming between his teeth a tune out of the last opera. The sbirro gave the signal. Up sprang the lazzarone and followed the officer. Both disappeared round a corner. Presently the lazzarone returned with his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various

... opposite worshippers indistinctly only, but he saw that Sue was among them. He had not long discovered the exact seat that she occupied when the chanting of the 119th Psalm in which the choir was engaged reached its second part, In quo corriget, the organ changing to a pathetic Gregorian tune as ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... am not minding about a bit hime at a time from a friend, but it iss those Lowlanders meddling with everything I do not like, and I am hoping to hear you sing again, for it wass a fery pretty tune;" and the smith, passing along the road when Carmichael left that evening, heard Janet call him "my dear," and invoke a ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... up the tune and the solo is repeated, after which the alphabet is sung through, and the last letter, Z, sustained and repeated again and again, to bother the next child whose turn it now is to sing the next solo. The new solo must be a nursery rhyme ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green

... has killed his assistant, and, if a good showman, bewails his lot suitably. He then decides to get rid of the body and, in some cases, to restore it to life again. In order to show that a tune on the "bean" has the required effect of making the body disappear, he lifts the lid of the basket and first with one foot and then the other steps on to the cloth covering the basket and presses it down to the bottom. There is nothing in ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson

... is a lightness about the feminine mind—a touch and go—music, the fine arts, that kind of thing—they should study those up to a certain point, women should; but in a light way, you know. A woman should be able to sit down and play you or sing you a good old English tune. That is what I like; though I have heard most things—been at the opera in Vienna: Gluck, Mozart, everything of that sort. But I'm a conservative in music—it's not like ideas, you know. I stick to ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... curious look of human life to the lonely moor, only inhabited by game, of which Angelot saw plenty. But he did not shoot, his game-bag being already stuffed with birds, but marched along with gun on shoulder and dog at heel over the yellow sandy track, loudly whistling a country tune. There was not a lighter heart than Angelot's in all his native province, nor a handsomer face. He only wanted height to be a splendid fellow. His daring mouth and chin seemed to contradict the lazy softness of his dark ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price

... between the vicarage and the church, and the fiddler and his company marched through it to a brisk tune, bringing fifty pairs of curious eyes to the windows and the doors. Tom o' Dint sat erect in the saddle, playing vigorously, and when a burst of cheering hailed the procession as it passed a group of topers gathered outside the ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... first. The attempts of Valentine and Charteris to divide their perceptions from their desires, and tell the woman she is worthless even while trying to win her, are sometimes almost torturing to watch; it is like seeing a man trying to play a different tune with each hand. I fancy this agony is not only in the spectator, but in the dramatist as well. It is Bernard Shaw struggling with his reluctance to do anything so ridiculous as make a proposal. For there are two types of great humorist: those who love to see ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... is dead silence. Ethel, shrinking from her husband almost as much as from his cousin, lies back in a corner, pale and mute. Inez Catheron's dauntless black eyes look up at the white, countless stars as she softly hums a tune. Sir Victor sits with his eyes shut, but he is not asleep. He is in a rage with himself, he hates his cousin, he is afraid to look at his wife. One way or other he feels there must be an immediate ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... piano is rightly regarded by many people as being little better than an instrument of torture. One reason for this aversion is that, in the great majority of cases, the household instrument is not kept in tune. Probably it is not too much to say that the man who would invent a sound cottage piano which would remain in tune would do more for the improvement of the national taste in music than the largest and finest orchestra ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland

... they will discover quite a different melody beneath—a melody by no means bewitching or soothing, nor inviting us to dreams, sweet forgetfulness, soft couches, and tender embraces, but a shrill and mocking tune that is at times insolently discordant and that strikes us as decidedly modern, realistic, and threatening. As the poet himself expressed it in his dedication to ...
— Atta Troll • Heinrich Heine

... kind of a hymn that would do for prayer-meeting," he said. "Hi, Christine! Is that a new psalm tune you're practisin'?" ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith

... sir, you didn't hear me say nothing wrong to the young gent," and so on, in a whining tone, till Tom cut him short by saying that, "if he had any more nonsense among them, he would send 'em all three over to Captain Desborough, to the tune ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... were a hotchpotch of fine phrases about beauty, truth, right, and the like, culled from writers of all creeds and of no creed. Its chief public function consisted in the singing of a hymn to "the Father of the Universe," to a tune composed by one Gossee, a musician much in vogue at that time, and in lections chosen from Confucius, Vyasa, Zoroaster, Theognis, Cleanthes, Aristotle, Plato, La Bruyere, Fenelon, Voltaire, Rousseau, Young, and Franklin, the Sacred Scriptures of Christianity being carefully ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various

... tongues can talk, And sixty miles a day can walk; Drink at a draught a pint of rum, And then be neither sick nor dumb; Can tune a song and make a verse, And deeds of Northern kings rehearse; Who never will forsake his friend While he his bony fist can bend; And, though averse to broil and strife, Will fight a Dutchman with a knife; O that is just the lad for me, And such is ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... thing happened. For the first time in months he found his heart marking time to the tune of the song which old Ben's hoofs had beaten out of the roads as they made their way up into ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey

... to his lips and took a long, hearty draught of ale. "Methinks," said he, "that all your stories have a twang of the same sort about them. You all of you, except my friend the Soldier here, play the same tune upon a different fiddle. ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle

... ornament the forehead of a Highland bull. A common horn it was—and the skill of the strong-winded performer consisted in extracting a succession of roars and bellowings from its upper end, which would have done honour to the vocal powers of its late possessor. A tune it certainly was, for immense outbreaks of sound came at regular intervals, and the performer kept thumping his foot on the floor as if he were keeping time; but as the intermediate notes were ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various

... the piano, where Angelica was playing and singing, and he sang out of tune, and he upset the coffee when the footman brought it, and he laughed out of place, and talked absurdly, and fell asleep and snored horridly. Booh, the nasty pig! But as he lay there stretched on the pink satin sofa, Angelica still persisted in thinking him the most beautiful ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray

... notwithstanding all the concession I could make, was the consequence. The proprietor, at whose instance this proceeding took place, was a brute—a tyrant. To all my overtures, his only reply was, that he was determined to make an example of me; and this he did, to the tune of about a score of pounds. This occurrence, of course, put an immediate stop to my fishing recreations; and, at the same time, excited some suspicion in my mind as to the perfect felicity which I was likely to enjoy in my retirement. Having given up all thoughts of angling, I now took to walking, ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... such thoughts. She was treading upon the air of some elysium, and she took and held Mr. Fenn's arm with an unnecessary tightness and began humming the tune that told of the girl who dreamed she dwelt in marble halls; and then, as they left the thick of the town and were walking along the board sidewalks that lead to Elm Crest on Elm Street, they all fell to singing that tune; and as one good tune deserved another, and as they were going to practice ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... showing great talents as a decorator. The gramophone was rigged up in my cabin on a board hung from the ceiling. A proposed concert of piano, violin, and mandolin had to be abandoned, as the piano was altogether out of tune. ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... the question to herself as she turned to work, but somehow ambitious aspirations were not in a flourishing condition that morning; her heart was not in tune, and head and hands sympathized. Nothing went well, for certain neglected home-duties had dogged her into town, and now worried her more than dust, or heat, or the ceaseless clatter of tongues. Tom, Dick, and Harry's unmended hose persisted in dancing a spectral jig before her mental ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... the song of birds. I was picturing the scene of our arrival—the shade and the repose, the long, cool drinks, the friendly hum of the bazaars—and wondering what letters I should find awaiting me, all to the tune of 'Onward, Christian soldiers'—for the clip-clap of a horse's hoofs invariably beats out in my brain some tune, the most incongruous, against my will—when a sudden outcry roused me. It came from my companion, a hired muleteer, and sounded angry. The fellow had been riding on ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall

... have not seen their way to attempting anything. . . . But expenses have grown upon me to such an extent that I have great need of your prompt assistance. . . . I have now so much credit with this assembly that I have hitherto made it dance to my tune, and I hope that as to what remains to be decreed I shall be quite able to maintain the same authority." Some of his partisans advised him to go away for a while to Orleans; but he absolutely refused, repeating, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... cannot possibly proceed till he returns. I reckon he will be here in about five Minutes; till then I shall take it as a Favour if you will step into the Green Room; and, in the mean time The Musick, by way of Act Tune, may play God save Great George Our King, to keep ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin

... the last two Sundays, had taken Mr. Barrett's place at the organ. She was playing the prelude to one of the evening hymns, when the lover, whose features she dreaded to be once more forgetting, appeared in the curtained enclosure. A stoppage in the tune, and a prolonged squeal of the instrument, gave the congregation below matter to speculate upon. Wilfrid put up his finger and sat reverently down, while Emilia plunged tremblingly at the note that was howling its life away. And as she managed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... score years or more ago were the untenanted and, to a great extent, the unexplored depths of a Victorian forest, were very evidently unaffected by the grim fancies of the evening. They were not laughing certainly, and when they spoke it was in whispers, but the younger man hummed a music-hall tune under his breath. There was something rakish, not to say reckless, in the way the elder sat his mount. They went carefully, though, taking every possible precaution against making needless noise. Once the horse of the elder man stumbled and set a stone rolling down ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh

... healthy and has had enough to eat and has slept all it wants, then it hums a little tune to show how happy it is. To grown-ups this humming means nothing. It sounds like "goo-zum, goo-zum, goo-o-o-o-o," but to the baby it is perfect music. It is his first contribution ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... perfectly human morality than other activity of man; because, in so far as it is truly art, it is indicative of a more comprehensive and unchallengeable harmony in the spirit of man. It does not demand impossibilities, that man should be at one with the universe or in tune with the infinite; but it does envisage the highest of all attainable ideals, that man should be at one with himself, obedient to his own ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry

... drunk with the spirit of adventure. Bred of the moonlit sky and the far shy stars, of the flooding moonlight breaking crisply against impenetrable shadows like surf against black rocks, of the tune of hoofs, of the singing wind and sighing waters, a wild and reckless humor possessed him, ran molten in his veins, swam in his brain like fumes ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance



Words linked to "Tune" :   musical theme, flourish, musical phrase, tune in, melodic theme, melody, air, signature, theme song, fanfare, adjustment, idea, theme, glissando, alteration, melodic line, leitmotiv, fine-tune, tweak, phrase, pitch, tuner, set, line, leitmotif, adjust



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