Tone

A single sound of definite, recognizable pitch. It also refers to the sonority or the quality of timbre of a particular sound or sounding instrument (e.g. "the tone of the cello"). In British musical usage the word is also employed to refer to the interval of a major second.

In acoustics, the word is usually understood to mean a specific kind of sound with a fundamental plus (except in the case of a sine tone) its partials.

See: Beats, Combination Tones, Complex Tone, Simple Tone. Compare: Click, Drone, Hum, Note, Overtone.