On the meanings of INTONE

Question

I have always had doubts as to the exact meaning of intone. Here is how Vocabulary.com defines the word—

utter monotonously and repetitively and rhythmically

AND

speak carefully, as with rising and falling pitch or in a particular tone

Am I the only one who thinks these two meanings convey two opposite sense of the word? And if that's so— Shouldn't intone be a contronym? (I doubt I have ever read about intone being a contronym, though)

Anton · Answer

“Am I the only one ... ?” I take to be an unanswerable rhetorical question.
The definitions you quote seem to be consistent if we understand “rising and falling” in the sense I believe it to be intended: repeatedly rising and falling. {Up, down, up, down, up, down, ...} rather than simply {up, down, finish}. The variation from up to down may be only small, as in (for example)

Intone = Say or recite with little rise and fall of the pitch of the voice.
Lexico

On the meanings of INTONE

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