ton·eme (t??n?m)n. Any of the phonemes of a tone language by which tone conveys differences in lexical meaning.American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.toneme (?t??ni?m) n (Linguistics) linguistics a phoneme that is distinguished from another phoneme only by its tone[C20: from tone + -eme] to?nemic adjCollins English Dictionary ? Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014ton?eme (?to? nim) n. a phoneme in a tone language in which the contrastive feature is tone. [1920?25] to?ne?mic, adj. Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.