tuneful
Americanadjective
-
full of melody; melodious.
tuneful compositions.
- Synonyms:
- sweet, dulcet, harmonious, musical
- Antonyms:
- discordant
-
producing musical sounds or melody.
adjective
-
having a pleasant or catchy tune; melodious
-
producing a melody or music
a tuneful blackbird
Other Word Forms
- tunefully adverb
- tunefulness noun
- untuneful adjective
- untunefully adverb
Etymology
Origin of tuneful
Explanation
Music that's pleasant to listen to is tuneful. A tuneful lullaby will put your little sister right to sleep. If you whistle melodically, in a way that sounds lovely to people who hear it, your whistle is tuneful. You might describe a new album from your favorite band as being full of tuneful songs, or the birds in your yard as making tuneful chirps and tweets. Tuneful comes from tune, which evolved out of tone and its Proto-Indo-European root, ten-, "to stretch."
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.
That sort of line is as close as the movie gets to being funny, and the songs, while reasonably tuneful, are bland aural wallpaper.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 18, 2025
It began with the score’s hit, “A Simple Song,” Bernstein at his most tuneful, even saccharine.
From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 10, 2025
In season three, for instance, Sam helps guide Brad, her best friend Joel’s boyfriend, through a tuneful declaration of his devotion.
From Salon • Dec. 8, 2024
The ever-surprising bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding persuaded the mystical and ingeniously tuneful Brazilian songwriter Milton Nascimento, 81, to collaborate on a full album that was recorded in 2023 and is due in August.
From New York Times • May 17, 2024
Her voice floated upward with the sweet summer air, very tuneful, charged with a sort of happy melancholy.
From "1984" by George Orwell
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
