undertone

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: un=der=tone

CIDE DICTIONARY

undertone, n. 

 A low or subdued tone or utterance; a tone less loud than usual.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

undertone, n.
1 a subdued tone of sound or colour.
2 an underlying quality.
3 an undercurrent of feeling.

THESAURUS

undertone

affective meaning, air, allegory, allusion, arcane meaning, aspiration, assumption, atmosphere, aura, bated breath, bearing, breath, breathy voice, climate, coloration, coloring, connotation, consequence, denotation, drift, effect, essence, exhalation, extension, feel, feeling, force, gist, grammatical meaning, hint, idea, impact, implication, implied meaning, import, inference, innuendo, intension, intimation, ironic suggestion, lexical meaning, literal meaning, little voice, low voice, meaning, metaphorical sense, milieu, mumble, mumbling, murmur, murmuration, murmuring, mutter, muttering, note, nuance, occult meaning, overtone, pertinence, pith, point, practical consequence, presumption, presupposition, purport, quality, range of meaning, real meaning, reference, referent, relation, relevance, rumor, scope, semantic cluster, semantic field, sense, sigh, significance, signification, significatum, signifie, soft voice, span of meaning, spirit, stage whisper, still small voice, structural meaning, subsense, subsidiary sense, substance, suggestion, sum, sum and substance, supposition, susurration, susurrus, symbolic meaning, symbolism, tenor, tinge, tone, totality of associations, touch, transferred meaning, unadorned meaning, underbreath, undercurrent, undermeaning, value, whisper, whispering

ROGET THESAURUS

undertone

Faintness

N faintness, faint sound, whisper, breath, undertone, underbreath, murmur, hum, susurration, tinkle, still small voice, hoarseness, raucity, inaudible, scarcely audible, just audible, low, dull, stifled, muffled, hoarse, husky, gentle, soft, faint, floating, purling, flowing, whispered, liquid, soothing, dulcet, susurrant, susurrous, in a whisper, with bated breath, sotto voce, between the teeth, aside, piano, pianissimo, d la sourdine, out of earshot inaudibly, (ii) SPECIFIC SOUNDS.