verb
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to pronounce or articulate (continuous connected speech) with a characteristic rise and fall of the voice
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a less common word for intone
Etymology
Origin of intonate
1785–95; < Medieval Latin intonātus, past participle of intonāre to intone. See -ate 1
Explanation
To intonate is to speak in a deliberate, almost musical way. Most poets intonate when they read their poems aloud. You'll intonate when you're speaking carefully to someone who can't hear well, and also when you're giving a speech. Chanting or reciting a story, song, or piece of verse also requires you to intonate — modulating the way your voice rises and falls as you speak. Intonate comes from the Medieval Latin intonare, "speak according to tone," from the Greek root tonos, "string," or "pitch."
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.
See Examples For:
Solomon said in a singsong, the way people intonate when they are not quite convinced of what they are saying.
From New York Times ● Jan. 18, 2022
They have this way they intonate their words.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 17, 2010
"Nevertheless," observed Darby, with an air of ill-dissembled condescension, "if it isn't umbrageous to your honor, I 'll intonate something in the way of an ode or a canticle."
From Tom Burke Of "Ours", Volume I by Charles James Lever
I could sing a French drinking song, taught me by the sub-prior Frere Jacques, and intonate a "Gloria in Excelsis" with a true nasal twang.
From The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 17, No. 488, May 7, 1831 by Various
"Ole Billie Bawlie" found as Number 4 was a little song which was used to deride men who had little ability musically to intonate "calls" and "sponses."
From Negro Folk Rhymes Wise and Otherwise: With a Study by Thomas Washington Talley
The most successful sequences are the ones that find new ways of illustrating the meaning of a poem besides lingering on the face of the performer uttering purposefully syncopated and painstakingly intonated lines.
From New York Times ● Jul. 8, 2021
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., even intonated that she’d be willing to send the House Democrats’ bill to a House/Senate conference committee.
From Fox News ● Jun. 28, 2020
Gate of Hell, its title to the contrary, admitted the Western moviegoer to a pearl-tinted paradise, a vision intonated by a highly sensitive Japanese color sense.
From Time Magazine Archive
Those who didn't faint contributed variously intonated screams to the general unrest.
From "And That's How It Was, Officer" by Ralph Sholto
Quite a number of words, such as the enclitics mentioned above, are not intonated at all.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" by Various
It is difficult to express upon paper the difference of signification conveyed by the mode of intonating a sentence.
From The American Gentleman's Guide to Politeness and Fashion or, Familiar Letters to his Nephews by Henry Lunettes
Here also stood the choir of young men or grown-up children, who united their voices or answered to the intonating singer.
From An Obscure Apostle A Dramatic Story by C. S. de Soissons
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