n. General, usual, or prevailing course or direction.n. General course or drift of a thought, saying, discourse, or the like; that course of thought or meaning which holds on or runs through a whole discourse, treatise, statute, or the like; general purport; substance.n. In law: True intent and meaning; purport and effect: as, the tenor of a deed or instrument of any kind is its purport and effect, but not its actual words.n. A transcript or copy.n. Character; nature.n. In music: The highest variety of the ordinary adult male voice.n. A singer with such a voice, or a voice-part intended for or sung by such a voice. In ordinary part-writing the tenor is the third voice-part, intermediate between the alto and the bass.n. An instrument playing a third part; specifically, the viola (which see).n. In medieval music, also, the hold or pause on a final tone of a piecen. the ambitus or compass of a moden. the repercussion of a mode.n. In Massachusetts, a new form of such currency, issued in accordance with an act of the year 1741 and subsequent years, and differing but slightly from that above described. The notes of this emission received the name of new tenor, which caused the preceding series, which had hitherto borne that name, to be thenceforth called middle tenor.In music, of or pertaining to the tenor; adapted for singing or playing the tenor: as, a tenor voice; a tenor instrument; a tenor part.