Definition of tuneless in US English:

adjective

• Not pleasing to listen to; not melodious.

  ‘tuneless whistling’

  More example sentences

  • ‘Every song sounds like a somewhat tuneless reprise, albeit not of itself; one is entitled ‘Nothing Will Ever Be the Same,’ although disproof lies close at hand.’
  • ‘As I hung up he'd started to whistle, that wobbly tuneless whistle that's unmistakeably elderly.’
  • ‘Oh, the joy of hearing a top-class brass section and not the ugly tuneless gabbling which passes for popular music today.’
  • ‘He did not even appear to be listening; his eyes were on the floor of the cave, his hands in his pockets, and his lips were pursed in a tuneless whistle.’
  • ‘The sound was awful, each song was a tuneless, discordant dirge.’
  • ‘British English, however it may have sounded in Shakespeare's day, has acquired a poetry-enhancing speech melody that tuneless, flat American cannot match.’
  • ‘Will we have to listen to her tuneless chanting for eternity?’
  • ‘He sat as silently and as still as he could, his eyes shut, thinking private thoughts and listening to Max's tuneless, wandering hum.’
  • ‘In a good mood once again, he hummed a tuneless melody and headed back for his room.’
  • ‘Derek was trying to persuade the manager to play some of his music - tuneless, grating, and likely to cause stomach ulcers.’
  • ‘He was a vast hulk of a man, who hummed a tuneless melody to himself as he lumbered down the corridors.’
  • ‘Most people fled the pub after the first verse of my tuneless homage to the maestro of Drury Lane musicals,’
  • ‘Outside, the first sea birds screeched and offered their own tuneless, harsh version of a dawn chorus.’
  • ‘I usually don't listen to tuneless sound collages, but at the end of this album, I was willing to give anything a try.’
  • ‘They should spend a little less time smoking wacky baccy and listening to that tuneless rubbish called dance music, and rather more time being seen and not heard.’
  • ‘A new piano is just a tuneless lump of strings and wood - a classy piece of furniture, or a rather cumbersome ornament.’
  • ‘It does feature some the most tuneless whistling we've heard committed to record in a long time.’
  • ‘We listened to several tuneless renditions of Little Donkey then breathed collective sighs of relief as we heard them shuffle on to the next house.’
  • ‘James took a pull of the coke can in his hand, and whistled a few tuneless bars of the national anthem.’
  • ‘For seven minutes the quartet play a tuneless dirge that occasionally changes and is entwined with a slowly oscillating synthesizer.’

  Synonyms

  discordant, unmelodious, unmelodic, unmusical, dissonant, harsh, cacophonous

  View synonyms