1. Word finder
  2. Word definitions
  3. tune

Find the word definition

What is "tune"

Crossword clues for tune

tune
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
tune
I.noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
know a song/tune/poem etc (=be able to sing a song, play a tune, say a poem etc because you have learned it)
▪ Do you know all the words to ‘As Time Goes By’?
signature tune
sing in tune (=sing the correct notes)
▪ I’ve never been able to sing in tune.
tune a radio to a station (=make it receive broadcasts from a particular station)
▪ The radio was tuned to a country-music station.
tune an instrument (=make it play at the right pitch)
▪ The musicians were tuning their instruments before the concert began.
tuning fork
tuning peg
whistled...tune
▪ He whistled a tune as he strolled down the corridor.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
catchy
▪ With his Soft Machine background, his deadpan baritone, his witty lyrics and catchy tunes, how could he fail?
▪ Sure, Fleetwood Mac was responsible for some great, catchy tunes.
▪ He writes catchy tunes with lavish pop hooks and huge slices of melody.
▪ But this machine played music no-one had ever heard before. Catchy tunes, though, and everyone had a singalong.
▪ Some catchy and not so catchy tunes help spread the green message.
different
▪ Everyone was singing a different song out of tune and taking no notice where they were throwing the water.
▪ Then we might talk about how different books have different voices, different tunes.
▪ That used to be a completely different tune.
▪ Now he is singing a different tune.
▪ But now it dances to a different tune.
▪ These days I march to a different tune.
▪ You're singing a different tune now from the one you sang after you'd left her behind and got yourself arrested.
▪ Clough has always marched to a different tune, but this time his perversity may finally be his undoing.
familiar
▪ They are comfortably familiar tunes, but she interprets them in an intensely personal way.
▪ While playing a familiar tune, these vans loudly whistle, talk, sing, and shout.
▪ Lily grinned as the familiar tune made the boards of the stage beneath her feet throb.
good
▪ Mike Barson, the man who'd given them most of their best tunes, quit the group, spent.
▪ The developer must have scrapped his plans by, as it was not a good tune for new golf villas.
▪ Bassist and singer Mark King had a knack for orchestrating good tunes into invincible pop nuggets.
▪ Enough to buy an entire album just for a couple of good tunes?
▪ Religious masterpieces such as the Messiah continue to exercise a fascination which is much more than enjoyment of good tunes.
▪ It was silly but it was catchy, and children loved it, which is always the sign of a good tune.
▪ They also have the best hymns, good old jolly tunes.
▪ Basically this has got a good feel to it, a good tune and a good throb.
little
▪ The refrigerator hummed its usual little tune to break the silence and Donna drank her coffee.
▪ Whatever, Mesmerised is a really pretty, catchy perhaps even poppy, little tune.
▪ The hotel phone sings its special little sickly Stef-and-Hugo tune.
▪ A cheap little tune To cheap little rhymes Can cut a man's Throat sometimes.
popular
▪ By careful timing they gave good renderings of a number of popular tunes.
traditional
▪ Too bad this disc puts so much emphasis on traditional folk tunes in its lessons.
■ NOUN
signature
▪ Even the distinctive signature tune has been re-recorded to provide a more modern feel.
▪ Each programme had exciting graphics, instantly identifiable signature tunes and a competition.
▪ One thing I regret: the jettisoning of the original signature tune.
▪ It was Buddie's signature tune, the one his band always played at the start of every session.
theme
▪ The theme tune from Titanic was played at their wedding.
▪ Gowie Corby, Gowie Corby, the theme tune for all that's wrong in this school.
▪ Tampons that play the Hollyoaks theme tune when inserted?
▪ He had come to equate the programme's theme tune with dinner.
▪ We swung into the Brotherhood of Man's special theme tune and turned all the spots on the stadium entrance.
■ VERB
call
▪ Does not the divine drama seem to suggest that the Devil is calling the tune?
▪ Despite a recent correction, technology called the marching tune in 1995.
▪ It was the businessmen, not the lords, who called the tune when the industrial system began.
▪ The man who pays the piper does his best to call the tune.
▪ You young girls can call the tune nowadays.
▪ At the end of the day, those who pay the piper must call the tune.
▪ So don't fall for it - make sure it is you who calls the tune.
▪ Sad to say, science is no longer pure: commerce pays for it and commerce calls the tune.
carry
▪ Nice tenor too, and he carries a tune.
change
▪ Chairman tells union delegates why the old enemy may be changing its tune. reports from the trades union conference at Blackpool.
▪ What is it about soundtrack projects that makes hard rockers want to change their tune?
▪ He'd soon change his tune if he thought she'd lost interest.
▪ When he got back, he'd changed his tune.
▪ It was only when audiences hailed her that he changed his tune.
▪ It also begs a question about whether the government is changing its tune?
▪ However, when questioned further he quickly changed his tune.
hum
▪ I found myself humming to the tune of the violin an old man was playing for sous.
▪ He was fifteen minutes humming a hymn tune as he did his toenails.
▪ Hrun hummed a little tune as he began to pull crumbling leather from the desecrated altar.
▪ Limbs and trunks rubbed together and intermingled, humming deep tunes like giant bass fiddles.
▪ And when I hummed old tunes that soothed my baby sister something in them spiked your grief to howling.
▪ The path narrowed, and Maude moved out in front, humming a tune Rob recognized.
▪ No one knew his name, but people hummed his tunes.
▪ She's humming a tune behind her silly smile.
play
▪ I don't just play tunes at keep fit classes.
▪ While playing a familiar tune, these vans loudly whistle, talk, sing, and shout.
▪ The karaoke machine had played the tune a month before the tune turned up on the wireless set.
▪ They play some very sophisticated tunes from the so-called real book.
▪ Don't play your: old tune, will you?
▪ The radio was on, playing one Glenn Miller tune after another.
▪ Ribs like a xylophone, they said. Play us a tune, Hoomey.
▪ I have been playing the tune now for nearly 40 years.
sing
▪ It is sung to the tune of Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
▪ Now he is singing a different tune.
▪ They were singers and they couldn't sing a note in tune.
▪ Now the governors are singing a new tune: Not so fast.
▪ Harriet found Paul teasing Ben: asking him to sing a tune, then taunting him.
▪ Today, he sings his classic tunes and hands out spiritual books at the end.
▪ You're singing a different tune now from the one you sang after you'd left her behind and got yourself arrested.
▪ Throughout a mediocre regular season, the Suns have continually sung the same tune.
whistle
▪ But equally often he'd collapse in the middle of a sentence or whistling a tune.
▪ The stranger was swinging his umbrella and whistling that infuriating tune.
▪ Thought I was going to die, and then twenty-four hours later I was whistling show tunes.
▪ In fact, Henry can whistle one tune which makes them all want to follow him.
▪ I listened hard and there was only the sound of the pool man whistling a tune to himself.
▪ From that moment Tess found she could whistle tunes to the birds just as Mrs d'Urberville wanted.
▪ A deckhand on the ferry from Brooklyn whistled the tune, and the words floated up from nowhere.
write
▪ He writes catchy tunes with lavish pop hooks and huge slices of melody.
▪ He wrote the tune that became the premiere rock song of all time.
▪ Kevin Costner shares the writing credit on one tune.
▪ And anyway, apart from one or two occasional pieces, I don't write tunes or songs outside a dramatic context.
▪ He was jointly responsible for writing at least one tune which became a hit and made a name for the other writer.
▪ Not writing a tune is easier than writing one.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
call the shots/tune
▪ But chaps who try chat-up lines of their own get the boot-because she likes to call the shots.
▪ Does not the divine drama seem to suggest that the Devil is calling the tune?
▪ It was the businessmen, not the lords, who called the tune when the industrial system began.
▪ Now, those calling the shots for the company began to realize that the whole damn case was getting too risky.
▪ Strug, the Houstonian with powerful floor and vault routines, may benefit from having Karolyi calling the shots.
▪ Traditionally, Tucson Water officials have also been allowed to call the shots.
▪ Watching outsiders call the shots is not easy.
▪ You young girls can call the tune nowadays.
change your tune
▪ Newsome was originally against the plan, but later changed his tune.
▪ She used to be a Communist, but she changed her tune when her parents left her all that money.
▪ You've changed your tune all of a sudden! Only yesterday you were saying you thought Christmas presents were a waste of money.
▪ Chairman tells union delegates why the old enemy may be changing its tune. reports from the trades union conference at Blackpool.
▪ He'd soon change his tune if he thought she'd lost interest.
▪ However, when questioned further he quickly changed his tune.
▪ It also begs a question about whether the government is changing its tune?
▪ It was only when audiences hailed her that he changed his tune.
▪ What is it about soundtrack projects that makes hard rockers want to change their tune?
▪ When he got back, he'd changed his tune.
dance to sb's tune
▪ They control all the funding so we have to dance to their tune.
▪ But now it dances to a different tune.
▪ Everyone was in a circle now, dancing to a rollicking tune played by the small band, and changing partners.
▪ Mandeville and Santerre had arrived at Templecombe wanting to make everyone dance to their tune.
▪ Now he danced to Kirov's tune, without knowing the steps.
▪ She had to stay on her best behaviour and dance to his tune.
▪ She was dancing to his tune a little too, and she was uneasily aware of it.
▪ This is how I like things - me pulling the strings, getting them to dance to my tune.
▪ Why did he get the feeling that he and Egbert were dancing to a tune?
he who pays the piper calls the tune
▪ Her benefits were therefore not so much economic as political: he who pays the piper calls the tune.
sing a different tune
▪ Now he is singing a different tune.
▪ You're singing a different tune now from the one you sang after you'd left her behind and got yourself arrested.
stay tuned
▪ Stay tuned for more on this late-breaking story.
▪ Could the same thing happen in the stock market this year? Stay tuned.
▪ Stay tuned, because the Carrey saga should get interesting.
▪ And some of us stay tuned to David Sesno.
▪ And they wanted us to stay tuned to the second half-hour for a thing on Vanna White.
▪ Even with remote controls at our fingertips, we are likely to stay tuned to the channel we have been watching.
▪ Music Center sources say, so stay tuned.
▪ The entire world will have to stay tuned to find out.
theme music/song/tune
▪ Gowie Corby, Gowie Corby, the theme tune for all that's wrong in this school.
▪ I know she liked the theme music.
▪ I worked on the theme song with Ziggy Marley.
▪ Sometimes the cartoon theme song is better than some of the episodes themselves.
▪ Tampons that play the Hollyoaks theme tune when inserted?
▪ The theme music for the show starts up.
▪ The theme music starts and I immediately find something more interesting to do.
▪ The theme tune from Titanic was played at their wedding.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ an old familiar tune
▪ I've heard that tune before, but I don't know the words to the song.
▪ The music box plays the tune "Send in the Clowns."
▪ Turn on the radio - let's hear some tunes.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But they seek also to have a religion which is in tune with the world in which we live.
▪ Hrun hummed a little tune as he began to pull crumbling leather from the desecrated altar.
▪ Like a lot of country writers, his tunes often provide a scenario and a twist.
▪ So in the overture they put Reuben Reeves on stage doing some of Louis's tunes.
▪ Stephan hummed a little tune and stirred his soup.
▪ The band put an easy beat through every tune, you could waltz or smooch or shuffle.
▪ The invisible forces brought us together and made us waltz to an unheard tune.
▪ With his Soft Machine background, his deadpan baritone, his witty lyrics and catchy tunes, how could he fail?
II.verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
fine
▪ Courses cater for all levels of diver from the absolute beginner up to those who want to fine tune their technique.
▪ When you read some one who can write about this as well as Lessing, it helps you fine tune your own perceptions.
finely
▪ Secondly, in some species the choice is remarkably finely tuned so that under certain circumstances familiarity may be preferred over novelty.
▪ It is a finely tuned art that depends on the perceptive skills and sound judgment of the consultant.
▪ Not only is the bird's distribution highly individual, its ecology is more finely tuned than that of any other falcon.
▪ And it is our experience that successful entrepreneurs quickly develop a finely tuned instinct for investing their time in high-profit opportunities.
▪ His stomach was as finely tuned an instrument as was his palate.
▪ Likewise, the balance between incidental excitement and structural cohesion is finely tuned in Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel.
▪ They are so finely tuned to each other s responses that they do seem to be cellmates.
▪ The administration of each territory was finely tuned and certain aspects of it were recorded on clay tablets at the urban centres.
highly
▪ All her senses were highly tuned to him.
■ NOUN
people
▪ More than 3. 5 billion people are expected to tune in to the July 19 event.
▪ Instead of either changing or performing, people tune out.
radio
▪ All the radios were tuned into the number one song Stormy Weather, by Lena Horne.
▪ Perhaps they need a little Radio tuned in to Norman out at that far post!
▪ Some soccer moms waited in their minivans and station wagons, but none had their radios tuned to the presidential debate.
television
▪ It was the game that caused so many to travel to Arizona and tune in on television.
■ VERB
stay
▪ Music Center sources say, so stay tuned.
▪ Even with remote controls at our fingertips, we are likely to stay tuned to the channel we have been watching.
▪ Who still works for the 60-officer department as a dispatcher. Stay tuned.
▪ The entire world will have to stay tuned to find out.
▪ And they wanted us to stay tuned to the second half-hour for a thing on Vanna White.
▪ Could the same thing happen in 1996? Stay tuned.
▪ And some of us stay tuned to David Sesno.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
theme music/song/tune
▪ Gowie Corby, Gowie Corby, the theme tune for all that's wrong in this school.
▪ I know she liked the theme music.
▪ I worked on the theme song with Ziggy Marley.
▪ Sometimes the cartoon theme song is better than some of the episodes themselves.
▪ Tampons that play the Hollyoaks theme tune when inserted?
▪ The theme music for the show starts up.
▪ The theme music starts and I immediately find something more interesting to do.
▪ The theme tune from Titanic was played at their wedding.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ If the engine needs to be tuned, Dad can do it.
▪ The television was tuned to a rerun of "M.A.S.H."
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ He is the main - no, the only - reason for tuning into Neighbours.
▪ Residents from at least 62 countries tuned in to the program.
▪ Secondly, in some species the choice is remarkably finely tuned so that under certain circumstances familiarity may be preferred over novelty.
▪ Stay tuned, because the Carrey saga should get interesting.
▪ The bikes would sit somewhere between Superstock and superbike machines, with less tuning allowed to them than superbikes.
▪ The detector has an amplifier that is tuned to recognize and amplify only the pulsed signal.
▪ The entire world will have to stay tuned to find out.
Related phrases:
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Tune

Tune \Tune\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Tuned; p. pr. & vb. n. Tuning.]

  1. To put into a state adapted to produce the proper sounds; to harmonize, to cause to be in tune; to correct the tone of; as, to tune a piano or a violin. `` Tune your harps.''
    --Dryden.

  2. To give tone to; to attune; to adapt in style of music; to make harmonious.

    For now to sorrow must I tune my song.
    --Milton.

  3. To sing with melody or harmony.

    Fountains, and ye, that warble, as ye flow, Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.
    --Milton.

  4. To put into a proper state or disposition.
    --Shak.

Tune

Tune \Tune\, n. [A variant of tone.]

  1. A sound; a note; a tone. ``The tune of your voices.''
    --Shak.

  2. (Mus.)

    1. 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.

    2. 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.
      --Shak.

  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].
    --Locke.

Tune

Tune \Tune\, v. i.

  1. To form one sound to another; to form accordant musical sounds.

    Whilst tuning to the water's fall, The small birds sang to her.
    --Drayton.

  2. To utter inarticulate harmony with the voice; to sing without pronouncing words; to hum. [R.]

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
tune

early 14c., "a musical sound," unexplained variant of tone (n.). From late 14c. as "a well-rounded succession of musical notes, an air, melody." Meaning "state of being in proper pitch" is from mid-15c.

tune

"bring into a state of proper pitch," c.1500, from tune (n.). Non-musical meaning "to adjust an organ or receiver, put into a state proper for some purpose" is recorded from 1887. Verbal phrase tune in in reference to radio (later also TV) is recorded from 1913; figurative sense of "become aware" is recorded from 1926. Tune out "eliminate radio reception" is recorded from 1908; figurative sense of "disregard, stop heeding" is from 1928. Related: Tuned; tuning.

Wiktionary
tune

n. 1 A melody. 2 A song, or short musical composition. 3 (context informal English) The act of tuning or maintenance. 4 The state or condition of being correctly tuned. 5 (context UK slang English) A very good song. 6 (context obsolete English) A sound; a note; a tone. 7 (context obsolete English) Order; harmony; concord. vb. 1 To modify a musical instrument so that it produces the correct pitches. 2 To adjust a mechanical, electric or electronic device (such as a radio or a car engine) so that it functions optimally. 3 To make more precise, intense, or effective; to put into a proper state or disposition. 4 To give tone to; to attune; to adapt in style of music; to make harmonious. 5 To sing with melody or harmony. 6 (context South Africa slang transitive English) To cheek; to be impudent towards.

Related phrases:
WordNet
tune

  1. n. a succession of notes forming a distinctive sequence; "she was humming an air from Beethoven" [syn: melody, air, strain, melodic line, line, melodic phrase]

  2. the property of producing accurately a note of a given pitch; "he cannot sing in tune"; "the clarinet was out of tune"

  3. the adjustment of a radio receiver or other circuit to a required frequency

tune

  1. v. adjust for (better) functioning; "tune the engine" [syn: tune up]

  2. of musical instruments; "My piano needs to be tuned" [syn: tune up] [ant: untune]

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Tune

Tune may refer to:

Tune (company)

Tune (stylized as TUNE) is a mobile platform company based in Seattle, Washington. It was previously named HasOffers, changing its name in 2014. The company produces two lines of SaaS: Tune Marketing Console and HasOffers.

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "tune".

For this purpose the two plates must be acoustically tuned to each other and placed not too far apart.

In order that astral events other than those manifesting acoustically may become accessible to our consciousness, our own astral being must become capable of vibrating in tune with them, just as if we were hearing them - that is, we must be able to rouse our astral forces to an activity similar to that of hearing, yet without any physical stimulus.

And the aileron and rudder controls, and those which governed the pitch and tune of the rotor blades, by whose combined means the little gig could have been brought down to the surface, were out of operation.

We were always looking for tunes, because we were making lots of albums by then and every album you did needed fourteen songs, and then there were singles in between, so you needed a lot of material.

Pausing to tune the harp, he snapped the string and, after a tense, whispered exchange with Alec, rose and bowed to the mayor.

From inside the cottage, Amelle heard her mother singing an old minstrel tune, and once again, she found herself wondering what kind of life her mother had lived before she had been born.

Once feeding is going smoothly, many mothers feel in tune with their babies, anticipating their hunger needs instinctively.

He bade them remember the tune, and promised them that whenever they heard it they might be sure their king was very near.

She secretly loved a tune, and the impossibility of ever confessing this without losing hold of Solstis, Baff, Birdigal, MacLewis, Clorane, and other English restoration composers, sometimes taxed to its limit a nature which had its Spartan side.

A marvelous bebop medley, consisting of wonderful renditions of jazz tunes in the style of Thelonious Monk, Bud Powell, Horace Silver, and Elmo Hope.

There, in that moribund, ancient town, wrapped in its siesta, flagellated with heat, deserted, ignored, baking in a noon-day silence, these two strange men, the one a poet by nature, the other by training, both out of tune with their world, dreamers, introspective, morbid, lost and unfamiliar at that end-of-the-century time, searching for a sign, groping and baffled amidst the perplexing obscurity of the Delusion, sat over empty wine glasses, silent with the pervading silence that surrounded them, hearing only the cooing of doves and the drone of bees, the quiet so profound, that at length they could plainly distinguish at intervals the puffing and coughing of a locomotive switching cars in the station yard of Bonneville.

While the poets cast mocking glances at one another, while Greflinger whistled a tune, while Birken smiled with moist lips, Schneuber waxed offensive under his breath, and Lauremberg inquired what had become of young Scheffler.

Bing off various parts of the naked body of, and still find pounding beers and doing bongs and lines fun and get to have fun on a nightly after-work basis, cranking the tunes out into the neighborhood air.

Moody and Sankey had sung their way into every dissentient chapel, and Boshy appreciated their words thoroughly, and sang them to a wrong tune incessantly.

The supper came through the revolving: dumb-waiter in very good order, two dishes at a tune.