entry
tuned
/tjuːnd/Adjusted to correct pitch or resonance
From Middle English via Old French and Latin tune (musical tone).
Word Ancestry
This little past participle is basically a musical coat taken off and hung on the word tune. English got tune in the early 1300s as a variant of tone, which is why tune and tone still feel like cousins who grew up in the same house. Behind them sits Latin tonus, and before that Greek tónos, a word that meant both a musical pitch and a kind of stretch or strain — the same family that gives us intone and intonation. So when a radio is tuned, or a violin is tuned, you’re not just ‘fixing’ it; you’re setting it into the right tension, the right sonic posture. It’s a neat little history: one Greek word for stretch winds up living in your guitar, your radio dial, and the phrase out of tune — which is exactly what happens when language decides music is really a matter of pressure.
The Story
This little past participle is basically a musical coat taken off and hung on the word tune. English got tune in the early 1300s as a variant of tone, which is why tune and tone still feel like cousins who grew up in the same house. Behind them sits Latin tonus, and before that Greek tónos, a word that meant both a musical pitch and a kind of stretch or strain — the same family that gives us intone and intonation. So when a radio is tuned, or a violin is tuned, you’re not just ‘fixing’ it; you’re setting it into the right tension, the right sonic posture. It’s a neat little history: one Greek word for stretch winds up living in your guitar, your radio dial, and the phrase out of tune — which is exactly what happens when language decides music is really a matter of pressure.
Kin & Kindred
From 'tune'·musical tone; correct pitch; melody
Derived Terms
English words from this root
Sources
Etymonline
Free Dictionary
Urban Dictionary
Wiktionary