timbre

1. 1.

   (music) the distinctive property of a complex sound (a voice or noise or musical sound)

   “the timbre of her soprano was rich and lovely”

   “the muffled tones of the broken bell summoned them to meet”

   Synonymstimberqualitytone

   Broadersound property

   Narrowerharmonicresonancecolornasalityplangencyshrillnessregister

   music

Other forms of timbre

plural

timbres·

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 timbre

What does timbre mean?

timbre means "(music) the distinctive property of a complex sound (a voice or noise or musical sound)".

How many syllables are in timbre?

timbre has 2 syllables, though it cannot be divided in writing — the spelling has fewer vowels than the word has beats. In IPA it is /ˈtɪmbɚ/.

What is another word for timbre?

Close synonyms include timber, quality, tone. 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 timbre a common word?

timbre is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with timbre?

1 word rhymes with timbre. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.