Spelling.School · How to spell

How to spell tone

hear ittone/toʊn/nounSounds

What it means: The quality or character of a sound.

In a sentence: The tone of the bell was clear and loud.

The part people get wrong

Often misspelled as toan or ton.

Same family: tones, tonal, undertone, overtone, monotone. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Tone comes from the Greek word “tonos,” meaning a stretching or pitch, which first referred to musical sound before later being used for slight differences in color. Artists borrowed the musical idea of ‘tone’ to talk about how light or dark a color feels on a painting.

Patterns it uses: Drop the e before a suffix?

Try spelling it

You will hear the word and a sentence. Type it and press Enter. Then four more words from the same level, so you know where you stand.

Words like this

Spelling.School is a spaced-repetition spelling practice: ten minutes a day, every word spoken aloud, every miss explained, and every word coming back just before you would forget it. Try five words without signing up.