consonance

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noun

1. Harmonious mutual understanding: accord, agreement, concord, concordance, concurrence, harmony, rapport, tune, unity. Idioms: meeting of the minds. See agree/disagree.
2. Pleasing agreement, as of musical sounds: accord, concert, concord, harmony, symphony, tune. See beautiful/ugly.

n

Definition: agreement, consistency
Antonyms: disagreement, discord, dissonance, incompatibility, incongruence, incongruity, nonconformity

Acoustically, the sympathetic vibration of soundwaves of different frequencies related as the ratios of small whole numbers; psychologically, the harmonious sounding together of two or more notes. Theorists of different periods have disagreed about degrees of consonance; the octave and the 5th have normally been recognized as the purest consonances, but in some eras the 4th, and in others the 3rd (especially major), have been regarded as the more consonant. Descartes, noting simplicity of ratio and pleasingness as criteria for consonance, noted that the 4th was simpler but the 3rd more pleasing. Schoenberg saw degrees of consonance as dependent on the position in the harmonic series (See HARMONICS). See also DISSONANCE.

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consonance, the repetition of identical or similar consonants in neighbouring words whose vowel sounds are different (e.g. coming home, hot foot). The term is most commonly used, though, for a special case of such repetition in which the words are identical except for the stressed vowel sound (group/grope, middle/muddle, wonder/wander); this device, combining alliteration and terminal consonance, is sometimes known more precisely as ‘rich consonance’, and is frequently used in modern poetry at the ends of verse lines as an alternative to full rhyme (see half‐rhyme). Consonance may be regarded as the counterpart to the vowel‐sound repetition known as assonance. The adjective consonantal is sometimes ambiguous in that it also means, more generally, ‘pertaining to consonants’.

Sounds that are in agreement interms of physical generation of sound; i.e. sounds found in the harmonic series of a pitch being harmonized, in contrast to dissonance.

A pleasing combination of sounds; sounds in agreement with tone. Also, the close repetition of the same end consonants of stressed syllables with differing vowel sounds.

For a list of words related to consonance, see:

• Acoustics - consonance: complex sound wave perceived as harmonious chord
• Harmony, Melody, and Structure - consonance: interval or chord that provides a feeling of satisfaction and resolution: third, fourth, fifth, sixth, octave
• Sound, Hearing, and Deafness - consonance: harmony of sounds

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See words rhyming with "consonance."

Dansk (Danish)
n. - samklang, konsonans

Nederlands (Dutch)
overeenstemming, het harmonieus samenklinken, opeenvolging van gelijk-klinkende consonanten

Français (French)
n. - accord, (Littérat, Mus) consonance

Deutsch (German)
n. - Konsonanz, Einklang

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - συμφωνία, ομοφωνία, (αρμονική) συνήχηση, (μουσ.) ακόρντο, συγχορδία

Italiano (Italian)
consonanza

Português (Portuguese)
n. - consonância (f), harmonia (f)

Русский (Russian)
гармония, консонанс

Español (Spanish)
n. - consonancia, resonancia

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - konsonans, harmoni, överensstämmelse (bildl.)

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
一致, 和音, 调和

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 一致, 和音, 調和

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 일치, 협화음, 공명

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 一致, 調和, 協和音

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) اتفاق, مطابقه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮חזרה על אותם עיצורים, מזיג, תיאום, התאמה, צירוף הרמוני של צלילים‬

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