dissonance

From Latin dissonantia via Middle French.

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /ˈdɪsənəns/, /ˈdɪsənɪns/

• Audio (Southern England)

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dissonance (countable and uncountable, plural dissonances)

1. A harsh, discordant combination of sounds.
2. (music) Conflicting notes that are not overtones of the note or chord sounding.
3. A state of disagreement or conflict.
4. (countable) An instance of disharmony or disjunction; a clash.
   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 106:

     In this polyphony of images in the unconscious which is beyond and outside historical time, there are complex harmonies but no dissonances: the images do not clash, but that, of course, is an aesthetic judgment and not a scientific one.

• See Thesaurus:dispute.

• cognitive dissonance
• critical dissonance
• dissonant
• lyrical dissonance

• assonance
• consonance

• scansioned

Learned borrowing from Late Latin dissonantia.

• IPA^(key): /di.sɔ.nɑ̃s/

• Audio

  (file)

dissonance f (plural dissonances)

1. (music) dissonance (conflicting notes that are not overtones of the note or chord sounding)

   Antonyms: consonance, harmonie

2. dissonance

   Antonyms: assonance, harmonie

• dissonance cognitive

• “dissonance”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.