cacophony

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English

WOTD – 24 May 2006

Etymology

From French cacophonie, from Ancient Greek κακοφωνία (kakophōnía), from κακός (kakós, “bad”) + φωνή (phōnḗ, “sound”).

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA(key): /kəˈkɒfəni/
  • (US) IPA(key): /kəˈkɑfəni/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Audio (AU)(file)

Noun

cacophony (countable and uncountable, plural cacophonies)

  1. A mix of discordant sounds; dissonance.
    • 1921-1922, H. P. Lovecraft, Herbert West: Reanimator,
      Not more unutterable could have been the chaos of hellish sound if the pit itself had opened to release the agony of the damned, for in one inconceivable cacophony was centered all the supernal terror and unnatural despair of animate nature.
    • 2021 February 3, Drachinifel, 10:55 from the start, in Guadalcanal Campaign - Santa Cruz (IJN 2 : 2 USN)‎, archived from the original on 4 December 2022:
      The Japanese got their attack in first. About ten minutes after passing the U.S. aircraft, they spotted Hornet (local weather patterns temporarily concealing Enterprise). Things had improved a little bit compared to the Eastern Solomons, and three dozen F4F Wildcats on combat air patrol were vectored onto the oncoming hostiles, but once that initial task was accomplished, things began to collapse back into the cacophony and chaos that was all too familiar to those aboard the Enterprise, meaning that the end result was round about the same […]
    • 2021 June 14, Scott Mullen, “Scotland 0-2 Czech Republic”, in BBC Sport‎:
      A blistering start from the Scots served to steady the ship amid a cacophony that defied the quarter-full national stadium.

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