Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Tonality

To·nal′i·ty (tō·năl′ĭ·ty̆), n. [Cf. F. tonalité.] (Mus.) The principle of key in music; the character which a composition has by virtue of the key in which it is written, or through the family relationship of all its tones and chords to the keynote, or tonic, of the whole.

The predominance of the tonic as the link which connects all the tones of a piece, we may, with Fétis, term the principle of tonality. Helmholtz.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty.