TONE DOWN • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Tone down

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/toʊn daʊn/ Listen

verb

Tone v. t. (past & past part. toned; pres. part. toning)

To utter with an affected tone.

To give tone, or a particular tone, to; to tune. See Tune, v. t.

(Photog.) To bring, as a print, to a certain required shade of color, as by chemical treatment.

To tone down.

(a)

To cause to give lower tone or sound; to give a lower tone to.

(b)

(Paint.) To modify, as color, by making it less brilliant or less crude; to modify, as a composition of color, by making it more harmonius. "Its thousand hues toned down harmoniusly."

(c)

Fig.: To moderate or relax; to diminish or weaken the striking characteristics of; to soften. "The best method for the purpose in hand was to employ some one of a character and position suited to get possession of their confidence, and then use it to tone down their religious strictures."

To tone up, to cause to give a higher tone or sound; to give a higher tone to; to make more intense; to heighten; to strengthen.

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Etymology of 'Tone down'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Tone down" Quotes from Famous Books

... a very cheerful place," said Sir Henry. "I suppose one can tone down to it, but I feel a bit out of the picture at present. I don't wonder that my uncle got a little jumpy if he lived all alone in such a house as this. However, if it suits you, we will retire early tonight, ...

— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle

... found it difficult to get any further; he knew himself that all he was about to describe was plain, unvarnished fact—but how would it strike a stranger's ear? He found himself seeking ways in which to tone down the glaring improbability of the thing as much as possible, but in vain; "I don't know how I shall ever get it all out," he told himself at last; "if I think about it much longer I shall begin ...

— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... or unbridled fancy, attractions that, in the language of reviewers, are styled under the head of "most striking descriptions," "scenes of extraordinary power," etc.; and are derived from violent contrasts and exaggerations pushed into caricature. It has been my aim to subdue and tone down the persons introduced, and the general agencies of the narrative, into the lights and shadows of life as it is. I do not mean by "life as it is," the vulgar and the outward life alone, but life in its ...

— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... Miss Twinkleton to tone down the public mind of the Nuns' House. That lady, therefore, entering in a stately manner what plebeians might have called the school-room, but what, in the patrician language of the head of the Nuns' House, was euphuistically, not to say round-aboutedly, ...

— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens