"one-note" meaning in English

{
  "etymology_text": "An allusion to the monotony of a single musical note played or sung repeatedly.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "one-note (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1971 March 13, Michael Sragow, “Theatre: Look Back in Anger Tonight at the Loeb Ex”, in Harvard Crimson, retrieved 2009-07-25",
          "text": "But Pope Brock plays him in such a one-note key of gulping and spitting and snickering cynicism that the spectacle becomes numbing.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1992, Jane Creighton, “Bierce, Fuentes, and the Critique of Reading”, in South Central Review, volume 9, number 2, page 66",
          "text": "The footnotes that attend Ambrose Bierce in the U.S. literary canon roughly place him as a minor writer of grotesque supernatural tales and trenchant war stories, a misanthrope, curmudgeon, a purveyor of stringing sarcasms, a one-note wit.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Anahid Kassabian, “Academic Frostbite (A Cautionary Tale)”, in Women's Studies Quarterly, volume 33, number 3/4, page 403",
          "text": "To his mind, there was only one right and true position on the question. This sort of one-note response is precisely the problem facing politically engaged academics in the U.S. at the moment.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009 June 18, Mary Pols, “Year One: Jokes from the Stone Age”, in Time, archived from the original on 2013-02-15",
          "text": "The movie is one long snigger. […] It might be one-note, but at least it's in the key of funny.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011 June 3, Benjamin Mercer, “On ‘Drive Angry,’ the Schlocky Role Nicolas Cage Was Born to Play”, in The Atlantic",
          "text": "Moreover, Drive Angry offers evidence that Cage hasn't recently been one-note in his performances so much as in his choice of schlocky material.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Having only one opinion, outlook, tone, etc., especially as expressed repetitively; without variety or range."
      ],
      "id": "en-one-note-en-adj-QvC5QjGW",
      "links": [
        [
          "opinion",
          "opinion"
        ],
        [
          "outlook",
          "outlook"
        ],
        [
          "tone",
          "tone"
        ],
        [
          "repetitively",
          "repetitively"
        ],
        [
          "variety",
          "variety"
        ],
        [
          "range",
          "range"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Having only one opinion, outlook, tone, etc., especially as expressed repetitively; without variety or range."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "Johnny-one-note"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "invariant"
        },
        {
          "word": "monotonal"
        },
        {
          "word": "monotonous"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "not-comparable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-one-note.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/9e/En-au-one-note.ogg/En-au-one-note.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/En-au-one-note.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "one-note"
}

{
  "etymology_text": "An allusion to the monotony of a single musical note played or sung repeatedly.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "-"
      },
      "expansion": "one-note (not comparable)",
      "name": "en-adj"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "adj",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "Johnny-one-note"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English adjectives",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English uncomparable adjectives"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1971 March 13, Michael Sragow, “Theatre: Look Back in Anger Tonight at the Loeb Ex”, in Harvard Crimson, retrieved 2009-07-25",
          "text": "But Pope Brock plays him in such a one-note key of gulping and spitting and snickering cynicism that the spectacle becomes numbing.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1992, Jane Creighton, “Bierce, Fuentes, and the Critique of Reading”, in South Central Review, volume 9, number 2, page 66",
          "text": "The footnotes that attend Ambrose Bierce in the U.S. literary canon roughly place him as a minor writer of grotesque supernatural tales and trenchant war stories, a misanthrope, curmudgeon, a purveyor of stringing sarcasms, a one-note wit.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005, Anahid Kassabian, “Academic Frostbite (A Cautionary Tale)”, in Women's Studies Quarterly, volume 33, number 3/4, page 403",
          "text": "To his mind, there was only one right and true position on the question. This sort of one-note response is precisely the problem facing politically engaged academics in the U.S. at the moment.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009 June 18, Mary Pols, “Year One: Jokes from the Stone Age”, in Time, archived from the original on 2013-02-15",
          "text": "The movie is one long snigger. […] It might be one-note, but at least it's in the key of funny.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011 June 3, Benjamin Mercer, “On ‘Drive Angry,’ the Schlocky Role Nicolas Cage Was Born to Play”, in The Atlantic",
          "text": "Moreover, Drive Angry offers evidence that Cage hasn't recently been one-note in his performances so much as in his choice of schlocky material.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Having only one opinion, outlook, tone, etc., especially as expressed repetitively; without variety or range."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "opinion",
          "opinion"
        ],
        [
          "outlook",
          "outlook"
        ],
        [
          "tone",
          "tone"
        ],
        [
          "repetitively",
          "repetitively"
        ],
        [
          "variety",
          "variety"
        ],
        [
          "range",
          "range"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) Having only one opinion, outlook, tone, etc., especially as expressed repetitively; without variety or range."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "not-comparable"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-one-note.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/9/9e/En-au-one-note.ogg/En-au-one-note.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/En-au-one-note.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "invariant"
    },
    {
      "word": "monotonal"
    },
    {
      "word": "monotonous"
    }
  ],
  "word": "one-note"
}