Definitions

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

  • adverb In an atonal manner; without tone.

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

  • adverb without tonality

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

atonal +‎ -ly

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Examples

  • The same way that he copes with everything – by atonally howling the lyrics at the top of his voice.

    Watch The Loney, Dear I Am John Video 2009

  • Notice that there aren't any Yoko Ono songs in there – even Yoko Ono knows that a lifetime of solitude on a desert island is bad enough without having to hear a woman atonally shrieking Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking for a Hand in the Snow) four times a day as well.

    Yoko Ono Pointing Lights At The Sky For John Lennon 2007

  • The classical composer of 1800 who somehow heard the world atonally, arhythmically, and to the accompaniment of falling trash cans and who then wrote a symphony in thirty movements on this basis -- this composer is innovating, all right.

    Creativity, convention, and tradition Daniel Little 2009

  • The classical composer of 1800 who somehow heard the world atonally, arhythmically, and to the accompaniment of falling trash cans and who then wrote a symphony in thirty movements on this basis -- this composer is innovating, all right.

    Archive 2009-04-01 Daniel Little 2009

  • They were hammered drunk, and played this song on a cheap boombox OVER AND OVER AGAIN, singing loudly, and quite atonally, with their Russian accents.

    The Final Judgment on “The Final Countdown” « Whatever 2008

  • Composers have been writing atonally — bye-bye, Western harmony — since Schoenberg in 1909.

    The New New Thing: Same As It Ever Was 2007

  • Going deaf listening to his adenoids rattle atonally.

    hey hey, the clouds are whey 2006

  • The song blends into something atonally sweet but unattended as I pass another shallow wash coming in from the right.

    127 Hours Aron Ralston 2004

  • The song blends into something atonally sweet but unattended as I pass another shallow wash coming in from the right.

    127 Hours Aron Ralston 2004

  • The song blends into something atonally sweet but unattended as I pass another shallow wash coming in from the right.

    Between a Rock and a Hard Place Aron Ralston 2004

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