halftone

• half-tone

From half- +‎ tone.

halftone (plural halftones)

1. (music) Synonym of semitone, half the interval between two notes on a scale.
   • 1872, Charles Darwin, “Means of Expression in Animals”, in The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 87:

     That animals utter musical notes is familiar to every one, as we may daily hear in the singing of birds. It is a more remarkable fact that an ape, one of the Gibbons, produces an exact octave of musical sounds, ascending and descending the scale by half-tones; so that this monkey “alone of brute mammals may be said to sing.”

2. (printing) A picture made by using the process of half-toning.
   • 1917, Joseph G. Butler Jr., A Journey Through France in War Time‎^[1]:

     Before leaving New York a handsome booklet had been prepared and printed. The brochure contained the names of the commissioners, their public records, halftone portraits and a carefully prepared statement of the objects of the expedition.

3. (art) An intermediate or middle tone in a painting, engraving, photograph, etc.; a middle tint, neither very dark nor very light.
   • 1876, George Meredith, Beauchamp’s Career […], volume II, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, page 18:

     “No, I cannot enjoy it,” Cecilia said to Mrs. Devereux; “I don't mind the grey light; cloud and water, and half-tones of colour, are homely English and pleasant, and that opal where the sun should be has a suggestiveness richer than sunlight. […] ”

halftone (third-person singular simple present halftones, present participle halftoning, simple past and past participle halftoned)

1. To reproduce a photograph or other continuous tone image by the use of dots of various sizes.

• OED2

• half note