- 1
To intone is to say words slowly and clearly, without much rise and fall in the voice — as if you were reading a chant, a prayer, or a list of rules, not chatting. The voice stays on one level, or moves in a small, even pattern. Teachers, priests, and officials sometimes intone; so do people who are bored, or who want to sound serious. Though actually, in ordinary talk it can sound cold or mechanical, as if the speaker has taken the music out of speech. It is still speaking, not singing, and it is not the same as being “in tune.” The related word intonation is the rise and fall itself; this verb is often the choice to do without much of that.
用平穩的聲調說；吟誦
組成From Middle English entune, entone, from Old French entoner, from Medieval Latin intonō: in- (inchoative prefix) + tonus (“pitch, tone”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix). Doublet of intonate. Cognate with French entonner and Italian intonare.
同家族的字
- tonethe Latin tonus, “pitch, tone,” sitting inside the verb
- intonationhow the voice rises and falls — the melody this verb often flattens
- intonatea rarer doublet from the same Latin verb, with the same job
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
intoneverb/ɪnˈtoʊn/
- 1
To give tone or variety of tone to; to vocalize.
- 2
To utter with a musical or prolonged note or tone; to speak or recite with singing voice; to chant.
- to intone the church service
- But when the moon rose and the breeze awakened, and the sedges stirred, and the cat’s-paws raced across the moonlit ponds, and the far surf off Wonder Head intoned the hymn of the four winds, the trinity, earth and sky and water, became one thunderous symphony—a harmony of sound and colour silvered to a monochrome by the moon.
- 3
To utter a tone; utter a protracted sound.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。