[f. SUB- 5 c + TONE sb.]
1. A subordinate tone; an undertone.
1894. Yellow Bk., I. 190. The river was wrapped in a delicate grey haze with a golden sub-tone.
1906. Daily Chron., 4 May, 5/3. Those delicate tones and sub-tones of feminine feeling which ‘mere man’ is … too dense to appreciate.
2. Mus. A subordinate sound.
1894. Daily News, 10 Sept., 2/4. He [sc. Wheatstone] was the first, too, to give a physical explanation of the sombre effect of the minor chord, which sounds prosaic to the æsthetic critic, for it is dependent on the theory of sub-tones just mentioned. [Wheatstone used ‘subordinate sounds.’]
