Tonic sonorities in common-practice tonal music are major or minor triads. The use of other sonorities in the late nineteenth century (well-known examples from Liszt's late period come to mind) is thought to point the way to atonality. Yet still other sonorities began to be used during that time that pointed the way for new kinds of tonal music. These sonorities are added-note chords of various kinds that retain a sense of chord root as well as affective attributes of “home,” “center,” etc. associated with common-practice tonics. Theoretical discussions of tonic from Rameau to Riemann to the present day, however, exclude such sonorities on principle because they are dissonant chords, and dissonant chords are the prerogative of non-tonic functions. This paper suggests ways to extend the theoretical franchise of tonic to these chords by examining rootedness in general and the abstract structure of added-note chords in particular. Musical examples from both art and popular repertories show how context influences the operation of added-note chords as tonics.