Overtone

Overtone

Noun · /ˈəʊ.vəˌtəʊn/

Definition

(1) (Music / Acoustics) a partial tone above the fundamental frequency of a note; a harmonic — a tone whose frequency is a whole-number multiple of the fundamental, contributing to the timbre or tone colour of a sound. (2) An underlying quality, hint, or implication in something said or written — a suggestion of a feeling or meaning beyond the literal content; a secondary meaning or suggestion.

Origin

From over- (above) + tone (from Latin tonus, from Greek tonos, a stretching, a tone — from teinein, to stretch). Overtone therefore meaning a tone above the fundamental — the upper partial that sounds simultaneously with the main note. The acoustic sense being a translation of the German Oberton (upper tone), introduced into English musical vocabulary in the nineteenth century. The figurative sense — the implication, the undertone, the hint of meaning — appearing in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, extended from the acoustic sense by metaphor: the suggestion being a tone above the literal meaning.