Dictionary:
ton·ic (tŏn'ĭk)  |
- An agent, such as a medication, that restores or increases body tone.
- An invigorating, refreshing, or restorative agent or influence.
- See tonic water.
- Boston. See soft drink.
- Music. The first note of a diatonic scale; the keynote.
- Linguistics. A tonic accent.
- Producing or stimulating physical, mental, or emotional vigor.
- Physiology. Of, relating to, or producing tone or tonicity in muscles or tissue: a tonic reflex.
- Medicine. Characterized by continuous tension or contraction of muscles: a tonic convulsion or spasm.
- Music. Of or based on the keynote.
- Stressed, as a syllable; accented.
[New Latin tonicus, of tension or tone, from Greek tonikos, capable of extension, from tonos, a stretching, tone. See tone.]
tonically ton'i·cal·ly adv.REGIONAL NOTE Generic terms for carbonated soft drinks vary widely in the United States. Probably the two most common words competing for precedence are soda, used in the northeast United States as well as St. Louis and vicinity, and pop, used from the Midwest westward. In the South any soft drink, regardless of flavor or brand name, is referred to as a Coke, cold drink, or just plain drink. Speakers in Boston and its environs have a term of their own: tonic. Such a variety of regional equivalents is unusual for a product for which advertising is so aggressive and universal; usually advertising has the effect of squeezing out regional variants. On the other hand, there are so many types and flavors of soft drinks that perhaps no single generic word has ever emerged to challenge the regionalisms. See Note at dope.
