# tonal
## English
### Pronunciation

* (General American) IPA: /ˈtoʊnəl/
* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈtəʊnəl/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -əʊnəl

### Etymology 1

From tone +‎ -al.

#### Adjective

tonal (comparative more tonal, superlative most tonal)
* Of or relating to tones or tonality.
* Of or relating to the general character, mood, or trend of something.
** 2011 December 5, James Poniewozik, “Boardwalk Empire Watch: Mother, May I Sleep With Danger?”, in Time‎:The lurid way the story played out felt like a tonal shift for Empire, but not necessarily a bad one—in the process of shedding its cool costume-drama attitude for grotesque family dysfunction, the episode felt for once less like a story about Prohibition and more one about a specific set of people.
* (music) Employing tones that have a predictable relationship to some tonic.
* (linguistics) Employing differences in pitch (tones) to distinguish differences in the meaning of otherwise similar words (words which would otherwise be homophonic).

##### Antonyms

* atonal

##### Derived terms

* nontonal
* tonal center
* tonal noise

##### Related terms

* tonality
* tonally

##### Translations
### Etymology 2

From Nahuatl tōnalli (“day, day sign”).

#### Alternative forms

* tona

#### Noun

tonal (plural tonals)
* (in Mesoamerican mythology) An animal companion which accompanies a person from birth to death.
** 1989, Robert Bartley Taylor, Indians of Middle America: an introduction to the ethnology of Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, page 122:When a tonal suffers misfortune or death, the same thing happens to the person associated with it.

##### Related terms

* tonalli

##### See also

* nahual

### Anagrams

* Alton, Laton, Talon, Tolan, Tolna, laton, notal, talon

## Central Nahuatl
### Alternative forms

* (Amecameca): tonatih
* (Milpa Alta): tonaltzintli

### Etymology

From Classical Nahuatl tonatiuh.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /toːˈna.l/

### Noun

tonal
* (Tlaxcala) sun

## French
### Etymology

From ton +‎ -al.

### Pronunciation

* Audio:(file)

### Adjective

tonal (feminine tonale, masculine plural tonals or tonaux, feminine plural tonales)
* tonal

### Further reading

* “tonal”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

## German
### Etymology

Ton +‎ -al

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /toˈnaːl/
* Audio:(file)

### Adjective

tonal (strong nominative masculine singular tonaler, comparative tonaler, superlative am tonalsten)
* tonal

#### Declension
### Further reading

* “tonal” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache
* “tonal” in Uni Leipzig: Wortschatz-Lexikon
* “tonal” in Duden online

## Highland Puebla Nahuatl
### Alternative forms

* to̱nal

### Noun

tonal
* sun

## Portuguese
### Etymology

From Latin tonus +‎ -al.

### Pronunciation

* (Brazil) IPA: /toˈnaw/ [toˈnaʊ̯]
* (Portugal) IPA: /tuˈnal/ [tuˈnaɫ]
* (Portugal) IPA: /tuˈnal/ [tuˈnaɫ]
** (Southern Portugal) IPA: /tuˈna.li/
* Rhymes: (Portugal) -al, (Brazil) -aw
* Hyphenation: to‧nal

### Adjective

tonal m or f (plural tonais, not comparable)
* tonal

#### Derived terms

* tonalmente

### References

* ↑ “tonal”, in Dicionário infopédia da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Porto: Porto Editora, 2003–2025
* ↑ “tonal”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2025

## Romanian
### Etymology

Borrowed from French tonal. By surface analysis, ton (tone) +‎ -al.

### Adjective

tonal m or n (feminine singular tonală, masculine plural tonali, feminine and neuter plural tonale)
* tonal

#### Related terms

* atonal
* ton
* tonalitate

## Spanish
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /toˈnal/ [t̪oˈnal]
* Rhymes: -al
* Syllabification: to‧nal

### Adjective

tonal m or f (masculine and feminine plural tonales)
* tonal

#### Derived terms

* altura tonal
* atonal
* bitonal
* sandhi tonal
* tonalidad
* tonalmente

#### Related terms

* tono

### Further reading

* “tonal”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10