dissonance

Borrowed from Middle French dissonance, from Latin dissonantia; by surface analysis, dis- +‎ son- +‎ -ance.

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

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

dissonance (countable and uncountable, plural dissonances)

1. (countable, uncountable) A harsh, discordant combination of sounds.

   Synonym: cacophony

   Antonyms: consonance; concordance, concord

2. (music) Conflicting notes that are not overtones of the note or chord sounding.
3. (uncountable) A state of disagreement or conflict.

   Synonyms: discordance, discord, disharmony, disjunction, dispute; see also Thesaurus:dispute

   • 1977, Lawrence S. Wrightsman with Kay Deaux, Social Psychology, page 366:

     Cognitive dissonance exists when a person possesses two cognitions, one of which is contradictory to the other

4. (countable) An instance of that state.

   Synonyms: clash, dispute; see also Thesaurus:dispute

   • 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.

• 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

• → German: Dissonanz
• → Polish: dysonans

• “dissonance”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.