tonal

\tɔ.nal\

/\tɔ.nal\/ adj

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

The verdict

“tonal” is uncommon French (frequency #78,921 among 3,703 “T” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#78,921
frequency rank, French
3,703
“T” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Qui se rapporte au ton, à la hauteur du son. Qui possède des tons.

Corpus desk

Index FR-tonal · tonal · French

tonal · rank #78,921 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #78,921
  • LEN-MID 5 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 3,703
  • PHOTO-FINISH tonale

Nearest frequency peer: tonale (+1 rank slots)

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Rangs de longue queue près de « tonal »

Bande clairsemée: les barres inversent le rang pour que le rare se lise plus court

corpus weight

What this shows Vue de longue queue: où « tonal » se situe face à des rangs français aussi rares.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for tonal
PropertyValue
Headwordtonal
LanguageFrench
Part of speechAdjective
IPA\tɔ.nal\
Letters5
Frequency rank#78,921
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « tonal » en français

De gauche à droite: le peu qui porte la parole quotidienne, puis la longue queue quasi invisible.tonaltombe dans cette queue de rareté:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

L'échelle est logarithmique (chaque tic ≈ 10× plus rare). Voisins rares de la même bande: « tonale » (#78,922), « tomberai » (#78,919), « tonicité » (#78,923). Parmi 3,703 lemmes en « T », « tonal » est au #78,921. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

tonal is uncommon French at frequency #78,921 among 3,703 “T” headwords, classed as anadjective, transcribed \tɔ.nal\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.

tonal doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.

Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct French form is tonal, spelled T-O-N-A-L.

Definition

  1. 1
    Qui se rapporte au ton, à la hauteur du son. Qui possède des tons.
  2. 2
    Qui se rapporte à la tonalité.
  3. 3
    Qui fonctionne selon un système de ton.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how tonal appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Le chinois est une langue tonale.
  2. Le sandhi tonal du minnan est plus complexe que celui du mandarin.

Antonyms

atonal

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "tonal"?
"tonal" is spelled T-O-N-A-L. The IPA pronunciation is \tɔ.nal\.
What does "tonal" mean?
As an adjective, "tonal" means: Qui se rapporte au ton, à la hauteur du son. Qui possède des tons.
How do you pronounce "tonal"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "tonal" is \tɔ.nal\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "tonal" come from?
"tonal" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar French words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "tonal", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked French headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

trimé#78,932tarin#78,899tarie#78,898swamp#78,888

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list