dissonance

1 a conflict of people's opinions or actions or characters [syn: disagreement, dissension] [ant: agreement]

2 the auditory experience of sound that lacks musical quality; sound that is a disagreeable auditory experience; "modern music is just noise to me" [syn: noise, racket]

3 disagreeable sounds [ant: harmony]

English

Noun

1. a harsh, discordant combination of sounds
2. conflicting notes that are not overtones of the note or chord sounding
3. a state of disagreement or conflict

Derived terms

• dissonant
• cognitive dissonance

Dissonance has several meanings, all related to conflict or incongruity:

• Consonance and dissonance in music are properties of an interval or chord

• Cognitive dissonance is a state of mental conflict.

• Dissonance in poetry is the deliberate avoidance of assonance, i.e. patterns of repeated vowel sounds. Dissonance in poetry is similar to cacophony and the opposite of euphony.

antagonism, argumentation, atonalism, atonality, cacophony, clashing, clinker, conflict, contention, contradiction, contrariety, contrast, controversy, departure, deviation, difference, disaccord, disaccordance, disagreement, disconformity, discongruity, discord, discordance, discordancy, discrepancy, discreteness, disharmony, disparity, dissension, dissent, dissidence, dissimilarity, dissonancy, dissonant chord, distinction, distinctness, disunion, disunity, divergence, divergency, diversity, faction, far cry, flatness, heterogeneity, inaccordance, incompatibility, incongruity, inconsistency, inconsonance, inequality, inharmoniousness, inharmony, irreconcilability, jarring, mixture, negation, nonconformity, odds, off note, opposition, oppugnancy, otherness, repugnance, separateness, sharpness, sour note, sourness, stridor, strife, tunelessness, unconformity, unharmoniousness, unlikeness, unmusicality, unorthodoxy, untunefulness, variance, variation, variegation, variety, wolf