intonate

1. 1.

   speak carefully, as with rising and falling pitch or in a particular tone

   “please intonate with sadness”

   Synonymsintone

   Broaderpronounce
2. 2.

   recite with musical intonation; recite as a chant or a psalm

   “The rabbi chanted a prayer”

   Synonymschantintonecantillate

   Broadersing

   Narrowersingsong

Other forms of intonate

past tense

intonated·

present participle

intonating·

third person

intonates·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about intonate

What does intonate mean?

intonate means "speak carefully, as with rising and falling pitch or in a particular tone". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in intonate?

intonate has 3 syllables: in-to-nate. The stress falls on "in".

What is another word for intonate?

Close synonyms include intone, chant, intone, cantillate. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is intonate a common word?

intonate is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.