How to Use tonality in a Sentence

tonality

noun
  • The tonality in many prints veers between stark white and pitch-black.
    — Richard B. Woodward, WSJ, 16 June 2021
  • Her tonality was the perfect fit to bring the dark and the light into the thread.
    — Matthew Allan, The New Yorker, 15 Jan. 2023
  • That’s one way in which the stand-up informed the tonality of some of the music.
    — Hershal Pandya, Vulture, 21 Apr. 2022
  • That tonality is hard to replicate.
    — Scott Roxborough, HollywoodReporter, 8 Sep. 2025
  • Then the rhythm of the characters and tonality, like, should every scene have a joke?
    — Randee Dawn, Los Angeles Times, 20 Dec. 2022
  • The tonality is much paler—no business tones, no dark blues, no industry colors.
    — Leena Kim, Town & Country, 14 Oct. 2019
  • But Calbi is also known for his ability to bring out the tonality of the bass.
    — Jonathan Bernstein, Rolling Stone, 4 Dec. 2021
  • Neutral colors were the name of the game, accented with rich tonalities of burgundy and deep green.
    — Rhonda Richford, WWD, 27 Jan. 2025
  • Composers have been shifting from atonality to tonality and back for over a hundred years.
    — Christian Hertzog, San Diego Union-Tribune, 14 Nov. 2022
  • Layered over all this is an original aria with gospel tonality sung by Liz Gré.
    — New York Times, 19 July 2019
  • Soon enough, all of the wonderful tonality and rhythm of an opponent's offense is stripped away.
    — Rob Mahoney, SI.com, 28 Apr. 2018
  • Design should fit the tonality of a brand but should remain consistent throughout.
    — Goran Paun, Forbes, 28 Jan. 2022
  • The lamps have now disappeared, giving a darker tonality to the painting.
    — Scott Reyburn, New York Times, 19 Sep. 2019
  • Gone is any sense of key or tonality, and the forms are intuitive, unrelated to symphonies, sonatas or dances.
    — Christian Hertzog, sandiegouniontribune.com, 7 May 2018
  • Each contains a detail of a head of hair — waves, wisps — and each is printed in a different tonality of warm brown or velvety black.
    — Leah Ollman, latimes.com, 9 July 2019
  • Making matters more unsettled, the tonalities of the performers are all over the map.
    — Charles McNulty, latimes.com, 19 Aug. 2017
  • Following on from this are nearly 30 pages of notes, graphs and analysis of the rhythm and tonality of the birds.
    — Daniel A. Gross, Smithsonian, 25 Apr. 2017
  • Its tonalities are traditional, and her voice and theirs blended heartily.
    — Paul Elie, The New Yorker, 28 Sep. 2023
  • This helps add some tonality back into the hair, also condition and seal the cuticle layer.
    — Jessica Teich, Good Housekeeping, 8 Apr. 2021
  • Past actions back the campaigns, and honesty is embedded into the tonality as a byproduct.
    — Arnav Sharma, Forbes, 27 Nov. 2024
  • Others had dreamed up the piano, diatonic tonality, and the 12-bar blues riff.
    — Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 28 June 2018
  • Lightweight suede outerwear in shirt jackets and blouson styles in pale tonalities was seen across collections.
    — Luisa Zargani, Footwear News, 23 June 2026
  • Her lighting in the more abstract battle scenes was going to play a major role of composition, so the lighting and the tonality of it had to be clear.
    — Kimberly Nordyke, The Hollywood Reporter, 19 June 2024
  • Watching people record harmonies in real time, everyone on one mic, having to match the tonality of everybody else.
    — Mikael Wood, Los Angeles Times, 16 Dec. 2024
  • The color's tonality works well with Paonazzo marble and burnished brass hardware.
    — Jessica Leigh Mattern, Country Living, 1 May 2017
  • As the brand voice, graphic tonality and other elements are clearly defined, the team always has a launching pad for any new design or template.
    — Satej Sirur, Forbes, 3 May 2022
  • But the 6 Pro stood out this year because the resolution is higher and the overall tonality is just slightly better.
    — Jakob Schiller, Outside Online, 27 May 2022
  • Understanding how the subject faces change, and adapts to it, determines the element and the decanter’s tonality.
    — Robb Report Studio, Robb Report, 20 Feb. 2024
  • The tonality is gray, or grisaille, because this is the underpainting, in the old-master technique, that Elizabeth learned at art school.
    — Dodie Kazanjian, Vogue, 10 Oct. 2018
  • The days when his embrace of bright tonality and luscious symphonic textures chafed against the aesthetics of a modernist mainstream are gone, along with the very notion of a mainstream.
    — Corinna Da Fonseca-Wollheim, New York Times, 10 Mar. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'tonality.' 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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