dissonant
Other forms: dissonantly
If things don't go together well, you can call them dissonant. Dissonant voices are saying different things. Dissonant clothing choices clash. Dissonant chords lack harmony.
The word dissonant comes from the Old French dis- meaning "apart" and sonare meaning "to sound." When a noise is dissonant, it sounds like it's broken apart, or not meshing together well. Dissonant doesn't have to describe just music or sounds. It can also refer to something that clashes or doesn't fit well together. When two people's versions of a story are dissonant, that means they don't match. Either one of them is lying or they just don't see eye-to-eye.
-
characterized by musical dissonance; harmonically unresolvedsynonyms: unresolved
-
lacking in harmonysynonyms: discordant, disharmonious, inharmonic
-
not in accordsynonyms: at variance, discrepantdiscordantnot in agreement or harmony
- MLA
- APA
- Chicago
Vocabulary lists containing dissonant
Katniss Everdeen must fight for her life in a televised survival competition. Learn these words from the first book of Suzanne Collins's dystopian trilogy.
In this Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, Blanche DuBois, a faded Southern belle, is driven to madness by her brother-in-law Stanley Kowalski.