Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Normal firmness or functional readiness in body tissues or organs.
  • noun The sustained partial contraction of resting or relaxed muscles.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In zoology, occasionally employed to denote the quality of dead, as well as living, tissue.
  • noun Tone; the state or property of possessing tone or of being tonic; specifically, in physiol; the elasticity of living parts—a property of the muscles which is distinct from true irritability, and determines the general tone of the solids.
  • noun In music. See the quotation.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Physiol.) The state of healthy tension or partial contraction of muscle fibers while at rest; tone; tonus.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun medicine The normal presence of tone or tension in a muscle or organ; tonus
  • noun sciences The ability of a solution to exert an osmotic pressure upon a membrane

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the elastic tension of living muscles, arteries, etc. that facilitate response to stimuli

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word tonicity.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.