as in shrill
marked by or producing a harsh combination of sounds
the cacophonous chaos on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange
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Recent Examples of cacophonous
Fried and the cacophonous home crowd in his proverbial corner, were a lethal combination for the Yankees in the first six innings.
—
Gabrielle Starr, Boston Herald, 1 Oct. 2025
Bowling at run-hungry batters on largely unforgiving pitches in vast, cacophonous stadiums with huge outfields in front of a partisan and at times baying crowd — plenty of English bowlers have found bowling in Australia akin to a Sisyphean task.
—James Wallace, New York Times, 22 Sep. 2025
Mistakes do abound on Getting Killed, from cacophonous guitar skronks to stumble-drunk hi-hat taps that completely throw off a song’s rhythm.
—Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone, 26 Aug. 2025
This year's trip to Thailand was an exercise in incivility and taboo-breaking, a cacophonous symphony of troubled souls colliding amid Mai Tais and monkeys.
—Kelly Lawler, USA Today, 12 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for cacophonous
Gabrielle Starr, Boston Herald, 1 Oct. 2025
Bowling at run-hungry batters on largely unforgiving pitches in vast, cacophonous stadiums with huge outfields in front of a partisan and at times baying crowd — plenty of English bowlers have found bowling in Australia akin to a Sisyphean task.
—James Wallace, New York Times, 22 Sep. 2025
Mistakes do abound on Getting Killed, from cacophonous guitar skronks to stumble-drunk hi-hat taps that completely throw off a song’s rhythm.
—Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone, 26 Aug. 2025
This year's trip to Thailand was an exercise in incivility and taboo-breaking, a cacophonous symphony of troubled souls colliding amid Mai Tais and monkeys.
—Kelly Lawler, USA Today, 12 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for cacophonous
Recent Examples of Synonyms for cacophonous
Adjective
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What's more, this door alarm features three sensitivity levels and emits a loud, shrill sound that will instantly scare an intruder away.—
Stephanie Gray,
Travel + Leisure,
11 Jan. 2026
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When Nosferatu showed his corpselike face, the Wonder Morton’s Vox Humana (human voice) and concert-flute pipes buzzed together in a shrill cluster.—
Alex Ross,
New Yorker,
22 Dec. 2025
Adjective
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That album steered far clear of folkloric kitsch, preferring dissonant frequencies and minimalist arrangements.—
Philip Sherburne,
Pitchfork,
7 Jan. 2026
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The cast fragmented, with the Byers family and El trying to start over in California while Hopper languished in a tonally dissonant Soviet gulag, as though the Duffers didn’t realize that what people loved most about Stranger Things was its grounding in Hawkins.—
Judy Berman,
Time,
26 Dec. 2025
Adjective
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These calls came not from doctors, hospitals, or mesh manufacturers, but from a large, noisy room a few miles from Fort Lauderdale’s white sand beaches.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
12 Jan. 2026
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Authoring this noisy, jazzy track all by his lonesome, Weir vocally zig-zagged his way across a cluttered arrangement flush with oddball time changes.—
A.D. Amorosi,
Variety,
11 Jan. 2026
Adjective
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Using a speaker outside the stall results in reverb and echoing as the music bounces around the bathroom walls, making the sound muddy and unpleasant.—
BestReviews,
Chicago Tribune,
8 Jan. 2026
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Given the lack of gravity, even a runny nose can turn into an extremely unpleasant experience, forcing astronauts to resort to unusual measures just to drain mucus from their nasal passages.—
Victor Tangermann,
Futurism,
8 Jan. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Cacophonous.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cacophonous. Accessed 21 Jan. 2026.
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