engaged tone

British

noun

US and Canadian equivalent: busy signal. a repeated single note heard on a telephone when the number called is already in use Compare ringing tone dialling tone

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

In their place is a more reflective, though no less engaged tone as these characters, and others, seek financial and emotional stability.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 16, 2026

The paper says the problem is actually even worse, as the figures do not include callers who just got an engaged tone.

From BBC • May 30, 2018

It was a performance in Kes at Manchester’s Royal Exchange theatre in 2004, after graduating from the Central School of Speech and Drama, that set the politically engaged tone of Garfield’s career.

From The Guardian • Dec. 30, 2016

You will either hear the engaged tone before you have even finished dialling the code, or you will eventually hear a kind of empty, electromechanical echo.

From BBC • Jul. 7, 2013

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023