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ton (n.1)"measure of weight," late 14c. The quantity necessary to fill a tun or cask of wine, thus identical to tun (q.v.). The spelling difference became firmly established 18c. Ton of bricks in the colloquial figurative sense of what you come down on someone like is from 1884.
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tonne (n.)1877, French form of ton (n.1), adopted for English use to denote a metric ton (1,000 kg.).
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tone (n.)
Related entries & more mid-14c., "musical sound or note," from Old French ton "musical sound, speech, words" (13c.) and directly from Latin tonus "a sound, tone, accent," literally "stretching" (in Medieval Latin, a term peculiar to music), from Greek tonos "vocal pitch, raising of voice, accent, key in music," originally "a stretching, tightening, taut string," which is related to teinein "to stretch" (from PIE root *ten- "to stretch").
The sense of "manner of speaking" is from c. 1600. In reference to firmness of body, from 1660s. As "prevailing state of manners" from 1735; as "style in speaking or writing which reveals attitude" from 1765. Tone-deaf is by 1880; tone-poem by 1845.
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