Toner

How to spell toner

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce toner

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does toner mean?

1. nounA fine powder or ink used in laser printers and photocopiers to form the printed image.
2. nounA liquid cosmetic applied to the skin to cleanse, tighten, or balance the complexion.

Toner in a sentence

• The office printer stopped because the toner cartridge had run dry.

• She applied a gentle toner with a cotton pad after washing her face.

• Replacement toner for that model costs more than the printer itself.

• The alcohol-free toner left his skin feeling fresh rather than tight.

Where does toner come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word is simply 'tone' with the suffix '-er' added, which names the thing that performs an action. 'Tone' itself traces back to the Greek tonos, meaning 'a stretching' or 'tension', and by extension the pitch or strain of a musical string; the Greeks took it into Latin as tonus, and English received it through Old French during the medieval period. The modern senses of 'toner' grew from the idea of adjusting or fixing a tone or shade: a photographic toner once altered the colour of a developed print, and a skin toner tightens and evens the complexion. The most familiar sense today, the fine pigment powder used in laser printers and photocopiers, arose in the mid twentieth century, named because it supplies the tone (the dark image) on the page. The trap for spellers is the unstressed second syllable, which sounds like a vague '-uh', so the '-er' ending must be remembered rather than heard.

How the word is built

• tone (from Greek tonos: a stretching, tension, pitch)
• -er (agent or instrument suffix)