monotone

/ˌmɑnəˈtoʊn/

/ˈmɒnətəʊn/

Other forms: monotones

Monotone is a droning, unchanging tone. Nothing can put you to sleep quite as effectively as a teacher talking in a monotone.

The Greek word for "one tone" is monotonia, which is the root for both monotone and the closely-related word monotonous, which means "dull and tedious." A continuous sound, especially someone's voice, that doesn't rise and fall in pitch, is a monotone. When someone speaks in a monotone, his voice is flat and boring — plus listeners don't know how the speaker is feeling when everything sounds the same.

Definitions of monotone

1. noun

   an unchanging intonation
   synonyms: drone, droning

   type of:

   cadence, intonation, modulation, pitch contour

   rise and fall of the voice pitch
2. noun

   a single tone repeated with different words or different rhythms (especially in rendering liturgical texts)
   type of:

   musical note, note, tone

   a notation representing the pitch and duration of a musical sound
3. adjective

   sounded or spoken in a tone unvarying in pitch
   synonyms: flat, monotonic, monotonous

   unmodulated

   characterized by lack of variation in pitch, tone, or volume
4. adjective

   of a sequence or function; consistently increasing and never decreasing or consistently decreasing and never increasing in value
   synonyms: monotonic

   decreasing monotonic

   consistently decreasing

   increasing monotonic

   consistently increasing