1
as in shrill
marked by or producing a harsh combination of sounds
discordant tones coming from the poorly tuned instrument
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in noisy
making loud, confused, and usually unharmonious sounds
the discordant cries of gulls fighting over the fishing boat's castoffs
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
3
as in aggressive
feeling or displaying eagerness to fight
a troubled, discordant family that would benefit from professional counseling
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4
as in conflicting
not being in agreement or harmony
his views on the proper role of diet in maintaining good health are certainly discordant with most contemporary opinions on the subject
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of discordant
This is a talented ensemble unable to show off those talents because they’re all reduced to instruments that play only two discordant notes.
—
Charles Lewis Iii,
Mercury News,
29 May 2026
The discordant, Bernard Herrmann-esque bursts of María Portugal’s rich score ratchet up the suspense and foreboding.
—
Sheri Linden,
HollywoodReporter,
14 May 2026
Unproductively, in the confines of the smaller-scale Fyda-Mar stage, the discordant sensory barrage director Oanh Nguyen brings to bear landed on at least one theatergoer as an agitated, irritating distraction.
—
Christopher Smith,
Oc Register,
13 May 2026
Fortunately, the play’s second act packs a gut-punch that almost makes one forget about the discordant way the first ended.
—
Ellise Shafer,
Variety,
1 Apr. 2026
See All Example Sentences for discordant
Charles Lewis Iii,
Mercury News,
29 May 2026
The discordant, Bernard Herrmann-esque bursts of María Portugal’s rich score ratchet up the suspense and foreboding.
—
Sheri Linden,
HollywoodReporter,
14 May 2026
Unproductively, in the confines of the smaller-scale Fyda-Mar stage, the discordant sensory barrage director Oanh Nguyen brings to bear landed on at least one theatergoer as an agitated, irritating distraction.
—
Christopher Smith,
Oc Register,
13 May 2026
Fortunately, the play’s second act packs a gut-punch that almost makes one forget about the discordant way the first ended.
—
Ellise Shafer,
Variety,
1 Apr. 2026
See All Example Sentences for discordant
Recent Examples of Synonyms for discordant
Adjective
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On shrill winter nights, Moscow’s power is conspicuous, its Orthodox cathedrals and Stalinist high-rises illuminated, though the view falls dim in the autumn and spring, shrouded in sheets of greige.
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The chaos is still an acceptable price to pay for Birney’s expertly offputting performance, a shrill mania that gets increasingly comic over time.
Adjective
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After Tuesday night’s noisy earnings report, FedEx is down around 1% in midmorning trading, off its lows of the session.
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McGee also prioritizes authentic community on platforms like Substack over noisy social media.
Adjective
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Grey-zone tactics refer to a range of aggressive tactics that vary from navy ship patrols to drone flights, but fall short of direct combat.
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That will be decided in the coming hours, as the Heat remains in aggressive pursuit of a trade for Antetokounmpo.
Adjective
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Federal judges in various states have delivered conflicting rulings on whether state laws that offer undocumented immigrants in-state tuition are preempted by federal law.
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New signs are emerging that the controversial Alligator Alcatraz detention center in the Florida Everglades may soon shut down, despite conflicting messages from state officials in recent weeks.
Adjective
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At the track’s apex Korten explodes in and out of dissonant broken chords against Mark Shim’s angular saxophone lines, an unexpected development that sneaks up on you thanks to Sorey’s sticky, slowly evolving drumming.
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This is reminding me of watching Slint play a reunion show in 2014 under the I-65 highway at a festival in Louisville, and how simultaneously awesome and cognitively dissonant that experience was.
Adjective
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Fiber-optic, first-person view (FPV) drones have become a key weapon in the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah’s war against Israel in recent months – bypassing Israel’s sophisticated defense systems by duplicating an asymmetric warfare tactic that first emerged in the Russia-Ukraine war.
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Children of the 1960s may recall that even within the militant activist group, Students for Democratic Society (SDS), animus was frequently directed not at the establishment but at fellow antiwar advocates.
Adjective
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According to Chernoff, this can lead to excess frost, stale odors, and inconsistent freezing conditions, all of which negatively affect ice quality.
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Golfers have long sought solutions for inconsistent putting, with many traditional tips proving ineffective.
Adjective
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We are made loving, good, and pure – entirely free from any inharmonious tendency.
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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.
Cite this Entry
“Discordant.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/discordant. Accessed 30 Jun. 2026.
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