Source: Make Me a Hanzi.
调 has 讠 speech as the meaning part and 周 zhōu as the sound part. Its first meaning was 'to mediate, harmonize, reconcile', though the sound link is unclear today. Read tiáo, it grew to 'average', 'mix', and 'adjust'; read diào, to 'exchange', 'reassign', 'tune, key, meter', 'tone, accent', and 'view'.
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