syntony
(ˈsɪntənɪ)
[f. syntonic a.2 + -y.]
1. Electr. The condition of being syntonic, or ‘tuned’ so as to respond to one another, as two electric circuits. Also attrib.
| 1892 [see syntonic a.2 1]. 1898 Daily News 31 Mar. 6/3 True syntony between the sending and the receiving apparatus. 1902 Westm. Gaz. 27 Feb. 9/3 For a number of pairs of stations, syntony-constants can be chosen which differ in period or pitch sufficiently to prevent interference. |
2. Psychiatry. [ad. G. syntonie (E. Bleuler 1922, in Zeitschr. f. d. gesamte Neurol. u. Psychiatrie LXXVIII. 373).] A syntonic state or condition (see syntonic a.2 2).
| 1925 A. A. Brill in Amer. Jrnl. Psychiatry 598 Translating..syntony into Freudian terms we can say that every transference neurotic has also a fragment of narcistic [sic] libido. |
3. transf. and fig.
| 1958 F. Berry Poets' Gram. ii. 20 [The Towneley pageant] is not a work wherein ‘anachronisms’ occur but a poetic drama where syntony, or multiplicity of tenses running together, is basic to its conception. 1973 D. Matias tr. C. Metz in Screen Spring/Summer 55 Pierre Schaeffer's specific propositions towards a classification of the possible interactions between music and image into four categories (‘masks’, ‘opposition’, ‘synchronism’, ‘syntony’.) 1978 J. Wainwright Jury People l. 177 There was a link. A basic syntony which each felt for the other. They each recognised in the other a man proud of his own particular skill. |