How to Use intonation in a Sentence

intonation

noun
  • Take prosody, which is the rhythm, stress and intonation of a language.
    — Cody Cottier, Scientific American, 18 Sep. 2025
  • How an actor gives an intonation on a pronoun can change the whole tone of the scene.
    — Brian Porreca, The Hollywood Reporter, 9 June 2017
  • Sharpe fixed the intonation, filed down some the frets on the neck and tightened up input jack.
    — Matt Wake | [email protected], al, 6 Feb. 2023
  • That can come from the intonation of the speakers, the rhythm of their speech, or how people react.
    — Scott Kirsner, BostonGlobe.com, 19 Aug. 2022
  • Horn knew every word, every intonation and hit every note of the song.
    — Alli Rosenbloom, CNN, 22 Nov. 2024
  • Violin gives you a certain sense of intonation, like singing.
    — George Varga, San Diego Union-Tribune, 28 Jan. 2022
  • Then call the crew and cast, then start rehearsal, then consult on moving, accent, or intonation.
    — Roxana Hadadi, Vulture, 24 Apr. 2024
  • Emilio chimes in, his accent still rich with the rhythmic intonation of Cuba.
    — Brooke Mazurek, Variety, 5 Apr. 2022
  • The researchers looked at factors such as intonation, speech rate, pausing, volume and pitch.
    — Karinna Hurley, Scientific American, 23 Jan. 2020
  • The brass encountered a bit of raggedness, the woodwinds a touch of sour intonation, but things got tighter quickly.
    — Tim Smith, baltimoresun.com, 2 June 2018
  • For people, both the word and intonation are important, but no one knew—until now—whether that was also the case for dogs.
    — Enikő Kubinyi, National Geographic, 31 Aug. 2016
  • Along with vocal intonations and gestures, meaning is conveyed in ways that go far beyond words.
    — R. Daniel Foster, Forbes.com, 24 Jan. 2026
  • This rapid decline suggests that intonation is processed in the more ancient dog brain regions.
    — Virginia Morell, National Geographic, 6 Aug. 2020
  • Sometimes there aren’t even words, only intonation.
    — Elsa Keslassy, Variety, 20 June 2026
  • The layered beat builds like a dream, swirling burbling synth melodies, breathy intonations, and pulsing rhythms into synchrony.
    — Stephen Kearse, TIME, 9 Dec. 2024
  • The tenors and basses were compelling here, the intonation of each group solid throughout their registers.
    — Luke Schulze, San Diego Union-Tribune, 19 Dec. 2022
  • The intonation that remains on Deutsch’s sometimes behave so strangely doesn’t sound like that of a full sentence.
    — Ben MacAulay, Popular Science, 22 June 2023
  • However, text alone fails to capture many key aspects of human speech, such as intonation, that help to convey meaning.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 19 June 2025
  • Think of tone, intonation and gestures, which can all serve to amplify the impact of your pitch and make the pitch resonate more deeply with your audience.
    — Yec, Forbes, 2 Aug. 2022
  • These conversations tend to come off clinical due to the content, but a slight intonation in your voice can make a difference.
    — Emily L. Depasse, Allure, 27 Oct. 2022
  • But the strings’ intonation was sometimes off, and motifs tossed between instruments weren’t always at the same volume.
    — Tim Diovanni, Dallas News, 10 Mar. 2021
  • Meanwhile, the right side is more broadly connected, suited for processing melodies and the intonation of speech.
    — Hysell V. Oviedo, The Conversation, 4 June 2025
  • What was your direction for the intonation of Rosamund’s character?
    — Rebecca Rubin, Variety, 14 Nov. 2025
  • The verdict from the rest of Wales on Downey's intonation will come after the film's worldwide release this weekend.
    — Bryan Alexander, USA TODAY, 15 Jan. 2020
  • Speech synthesis to us is not just the words themselves, but the nuance of creating the full richness of voice, like intonation and rhythm, in real time.
    — Daniela Hernandez, WSJ, 2 Sep. 2022
  • Double-stops proved a stumbling block for Woods, in the sonata’s first movement and throughout the recital, often turning sour in intonation.
    — Washington Post, 13 Sep. 2019
  • De Niro’s lines, so De Niro could hear the intonation, not to feign a Southern dialect, but to sound close enough.
    — Tim Chitwood, ajc, 22 May 2021
  • After this display of reverence, the scroll would be laid down on a podium and opened, and the rabbi would read that week’s portion aloud in a special intonation.
    — Nicholas Lemann, New Yorker, 21 Feb. 2026
  • As with people’s brains, parts of dogs’ left hemisphere react to meaning and parts of the right hemisphere to intonation — the emotional content of a sound.
    — James Gorman, New York Times, 29 Aug. 2016
  • The adagio begins with muted warmth in the strings, which Reinhardt used to highlight the winds’ unity of timbre and intonation.
    — Luke Schulze, San Diego Union-Tribune, 9 May 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'intonation.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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