dissonance

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(dĭs'ə-nəns)
n.

1. A harsh, disagreeable combination of sounds; discord.
2. Lack of agreement, consistency, or harmony; conflict: "In Vietnam, reality fell away and dissonance between claim and fact filled the void" (Michael Janeway).
3. Music. A combination of tones contextually considered to suggest unrelieved tension and require resolution.

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noun

A state of disagreement and disharmony: clash, conflict, confrontation, contention, difference, difficulty, disaccord, discord, discordance, dissension, dissent, dissentience, dissidence, faction, friction, inharmony, schism, strife, variance, war, warfare. See conflict/cooperation.

n

Definition: disagreement
Antonyms: agreement, concord, harmony

n

Definition: noise, discord
Antonyms: accord, consonance, harmony, peacefulness, resonance

Two or more notes sounding together and forming a discord, or a sound which, in the prevailing harmonic system, is unstable and needs to be resolved to a consonance.

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dissonance, harshness of sound and/or rhythm, either inadvertent or deliberate. The term is nearly equivalent to cacophony, but tends to denote a lack of harmony between sounds rather than the harshness of a particular sound in isolation. Browning, Hopkins, and many other poets have made deliberate use of dissonance.

Adjective: dissonant.

Notes that conflict, or sound outside of a chord in which they occur. Such notes usually fall outside of the overtones which are being generated by the note or chord that is sounding.

A mingling or union of harsh, inharmonious sounds which are grating to the ear.

For a list of words related to dissonance, see:

• Acoustics - dissonance: sound waves perceived as inharmonious noise
• Harmony, Melody, and Structure - dissonance: interval or chord that is restless and discordant
• Sound, Hearing, and Deafness - dissonance: inharmonious or harsh sound; cacophony; discord

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See words rhyming with "dissonance."

  See crossword solutions for the clue Dissonance.

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - dissonans, mislyd

Nederlands (Dutch)
dissonantie, wanklank, verschil

Français (French)
n. - dissonance, discordance

Deutsch (German)
n. - Dissonanz, Mißklang

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - κακοφωνία, παραφωνία, δυσαρμονία

Italiano (Italian)
dissonanza

Português (Portuguese)
n. - dissonância (f)

Русский (Russian)
диссонанс, несоответствие

Español (Spanish)
n. - disonancia, nota discordante

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - dissonans, oenighet

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
不和谐音, 不一致

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 不和諧音, 不一致

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 불화, 맞지 않은 음

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 耳ざわりな音, 不協和, 不一致, 不調和, 不協和音

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) تنافر, خلاف, لا تناغم ( موسيقيا)‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮אי-הרמוניות של צלילים, צריר, דיסוננס‬

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