ringtones

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of ringtone.

   He flipped through dozens of ringtones before settling on a soft piano clip.

   Custom ringtones let people recognize a caller without looking at the screen.

   Note

   A regular -s plural, and it covers both meanings of the noun: the sound any telephone makes when it rings, and the customizable tone a mobile phone plays for an incoming call. The second meaning is the one that most often appears in the plural, since a phone can offer many tones to choose from. Its own ring, by contrast, is rarely counted.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of ringtone.

   Note

   The verb behind this form is a telephone's verb: its natural subject is the phone itself, which plays a tone when a call comes in. It works with or without an object, so a phone can simply ring out or play a chosen melody. It shares its spelling with the plural noun. A determiner in front, as in the ringtones or her ringtones, marks the noun.

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