half-tone

IPA/hˈɑːftˈəʊn/
IPA/hˈæftˈoʊn/

half-tone — noun

1. a way of printing or copying a picture with tiny dots so it seems to have smooth

1.nounC1
Definition

a way of printing or copying a picture with tiny dots so it seems to have smooth changes of grey or colour, or the picture made in that way.

Example

The newspaper used a half-tone to print the mayor's portrait cheaply.

use a half-tone to reproduce a printed picture

Karim showed the class how tiny dots build a half-tone image.

half-tone image formed by tiny dots

Common collocations
  • half-tone image
  • half-tone print
  • print as a half-tone
Synonyms
  • screened image

    focuses more on the printed result than on the process

  • photoengraving

    an older printing term, especially in traditional press work

  • raster image

    a digital graphics term; broader than half-tone

Grammar Patterns

print as a half-tone

a half-tone image

Usage Note

Common in printing, newspaper, and design talk. It can name either the dot-screen process itself or the printed picture that process creates.

2. the band of grey shades that lies between pure black and pure white in a photogr

2.nounC1
Definition

the band of grey shades that lies between pure black and pure white in a photograph or similar image.

Example

Hugo adjusted the photo so the half-tone between the clouds looked smoother.

half-tone showing visible grey shading in a photo

The old poster still showed half-tone between the singer's black coat and white shirt.

Common collocations
  • lose the half-tone
  • preserve the half-tone
  • see the half-tone
Synonyms
  • grey scale

    the broader system of grey values, not just one picture's visible band

  • midtones

    only the middle greys, not the full dark-to-light range

Grammar Patterns

see the half-tone in [image]

lose the half-tone

Usage Note

Used when talking about visible shading inside a photo or similar image. Distinguish from sense 1: sense 2 names the grey range you can see, while sense 1 names the dot-based process or printed result.

3. the shortest move from one note to the next in Western music; a semitone.

3.nounC1
Definition

the shortest move from one note to the next in Western music; a semitone.

Example

The piano student moved up a half-tone to the next black key.

move up a half-tone in a scale

Benjamin sang the last note a half-tone too high.

Common collocations
  • up a half-tone
  • down a half-tone
  • a half-tone higher
Synonyms
  • semitone

    the standard music-theory term in many textbooks

  • half step

    common classroom term, especially in American music teaching

Antonyms
  • whole tone

    an interval twice as large as a half-tone

Grammar Patterns

up a half-tone

down a half-tone

Usage Note

Used mainly in music lessons and theory. British and American writers also use 'semitone'; in many teaching contexts, the two names refer to the same interval.

Common Mistakes

Raise it one tone.
Raise it a half-tone.
a tone is a larger interval, so half-tone is the smaller single-step movement.

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

Half-tone, photoengraving, screened image, and raster image all relate to pictures built from small units, but they are not interchangeable. A half-tone is specifically a process, or the resulting picture, that uses dots of different size or spacing to make shading look smooth. Photoengraving is an older printing term, often tied to plates and traditional press work. A screened image names the visible dot pattern more generally, but it is less fixed as a dictionary label. Raster image is a digital graphics term for any picture made from pixels, so many raster images are not half-tones at all. In short, every half-tone is a kind of screened image, but not every screened or raster image is a half-tone.

half-tone ↗photoengraving ↗screened imageraster image

Etymology

English

Half-tone is a transparent English compound built from half and tone. In music, the meaning is literal: it is half of a whole tone. Printers later used the same wording for pictures that create middle tones between black and white by breaking an image into dots. From there, the word also came to name the visible grey shading produced in the image itself. The spelling often appears both with and without the hyphen, but the core idea stays the same: something that sits between fuller tonal values.