as in shrill
marked by or producing a harsh combination of sounds
a dissonant chorus of noises arose from the busy construction site
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Recent Examples of dissonant
The creatively dissonant effort drove a nearly 10% month-over-month increase in store brand sales and a 12% increase across the category; expanded 7-Eleven’s in-house creative agency, producing campaigns faster and cheaper, all while also reducing plastic bag usage by 37%.
—
Seth Matlins, Forbes.com, 14 Apr. 2025
The book cover, showing a happy couple on a beach accompanied by a dog with a stick in its mouth, seems cheerily dissonant.
—Julio Ojeda-Zapata, Twin Cities, 29 Mar. 2025
The major-sevenths, by stuffing four notes into the chords, offered greater harmonic options, and Sikes was determined to take advantage of them, encouraging Wayne to incorporate the dissonant notes into her high harmonies.
—Tom Roland, Billboard, 22 Apr. 2025
And there’s a blunt, pulp poetry to Manny’s conclusion (if not a particularly sensitive one), driven to despair by an inability to live in the dissonant but very real space between one’s religious moral compass and the realities of one’s life.
—Andy Andersen, Vulture, 18 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for dissonant
Seth Matlins, Forbes.com, 14 Apr. 2025
The book cover, showing a happy couple on a beach accompanied by a dog with a stick in its mouth, seems cheerily dissonant.
—Julio Ojeda-Zapata, Twin Cities, 29 Mar. 2025
The major-sevenths, by stuffing four notes into the chords, offered greater harmonic options, and Sikes was determined to take advantage of them, encouraging Wayne to incorporate the dissonant notes into her high harmonies.
—Tom Roland, Billboard, 22 Apr. 2025
And there’s a blunt, pulp poetry to Manny’s conclusion (if not a particularly sensitive one), driven to despair by an inability to live in the dissonant but very real space between one’s religious moral compass and the realities of one’s life.
—Andy Andersen, Vulture, 18 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for dissonant
Recent Examples of Synonyms for dissonant
Adjective
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The males climb up trees and produce their shrill songs en masse, using muscles to vibrate a rigid part of their exoskeletons called tymbals.—
Jack Knudson,
Discover Magazine,
30 May 2025
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Their bathroom floor also pooled with water after showering, and noise from other apartments, like the shrill beeps of a low-battery smoke detector next door, carried through the paper-thin walls.—
Matthew Sedacca,
Curbed,
22 Apr. 2025
Adjective
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Its lineup interspersed noisy no wave groups like Pop Music Fever Dream and Pure Adult, upbeat pop-rock performances from bands like Um, Jennifer?—
Grace Robins-Somerville,
Pitchfork,
4 June 2025
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The sheer volume of content created far outpaces what audiences can consume, leading to a noisy, crowded digital ecosystem.—
Luca Brinkhues,
Forbes.com,
4 June 2025
Adjective
-
Baltimore deserves credit for stepping up and sending Tullis-Joyce the wrong way, particularly against a cacophonous backdrop of angry United fans behind that goal.—
Michael Cox,
New York Times,
18 May 2025
-
Episode 2, set at Jamie’s school just a few days after the incident, thrives in the chaos of innumerable moving pieces as kids push through crowded passageways, cram inside cacophonous classrooms, and even parade out to the playground during an unexpected fire drill.—
Ben Travers,
IndieWire,
13 Mar. 2025
Adjective
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People did not bathe much in those days and by spreading herbs that released pleasant aromas when walked upon, unpleasant odors could be disguised.—
Joshua Siskin,
Oc Register,
12 June 2025
-
There are some cool moments here, but the overall effect is unpleasant.—
Erik Kain,
Forbes.com,
12 June 2025
Adjective
-
Homes, bars, and dance halls pulsed with sound in a discordant, desperate attempt to stave off death.—
Christina Coulter,
People.com,
4 June 2025
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His India would define itself through diversity; through a grand, maternal embrace of all its discordant parts.—
Robert F. Worth,
The Atlantic,
2 Jan. 2025
Adjective
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Israel also reportedly destroyed the Isfahan metallic uranium plant and claimed limited damage to facilities buried in the mountainside in Fordow; and targeted elimination of the top Iranian nuclear program managers, denying Iran the future human capital for its WMD aspirations.—
Ariel Cohen,
Forbes.com,
14 June 2025
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Iridescent Moon Deep navy and inky black form the base of this cosmic collection, accentuated with metallic shimmer and midnight sparkle.—
Elizabeth Fogarty,
Better Homes & Gardens,
13 June 2025
Adjective
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Those songs remind Omara of real people and real events, political interludes whose senselessness and brutality have left unmusical lacunae in her life.—
Vinson Cunningham,
The New Yorker,
18 Dec. 2023
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His parents were unmusical Russian-Jewish immigrants who ran various businesses with mixed success.—
The Economist,
The Economist,
3 Oct. 2019
Adjective
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Setting Discordant Personal Goals A 2023 study published in Current Psychology finds that partners’ inharmonious goals can have detrimental effects on relationships.—
Mark Travers,
Forbes,
29 Mar. 2024
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For sixteen hours a week, Valentine hopes to share some melody in a place that, for some, can feel inharmonious.—
Washington Post,
Washington Post,
24 July 2021
Cite this Entry
“Dissonant.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/dissonant. Accessed 18 Jun. 2025.
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