atonal.

Not organized around a single governing musical key or tonal center.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• atonal music
• atonal passage

On the page

An atonal passage drifted through the station's empty lounge.

She found the atonal music unsettling, though the performer heard freedom in it.

Usage notes

Primary category: sensory / description. Forms: Normally non-gradable as a sensory or musical relation; comparisons require a meaningful context. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.