as in discord
a lack of agreement or harmony
the dissonance between what we are told and what we see with our own eyes
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of dissonance
Janet Afary, a religious-studies professor at UC Santa Barbara, helped put this dissonance in context.
—
Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic, 16 Jan. 2026
The dissonance between those two things was really strange.
—Maya Georgi, Rolling Stone, 16 Jan. 2026
Lately, though, the foundational case study of the Seekers has been contending with its own kind of dissonance.
—Shayla Love, New Yorker, 17 Dec. 2025
Yet, there remains a wonderful dissonance to the tableau.
—Kevin Sintumuang, Outside, 16 Dec. 2025
See All Example Sentences for dissonance
Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic, 16 Jan. 2026
The dissonance between those two things was really strange.
—Maya Georgi, Rolling Stone, 16 Jan. 2026
Lately, though, the foundational case study of the Seekers has been contending with its own kind of dissonance.
—Shayla Love, New Yorker, 17 Dec. 2025
Yet, there remains a wonderful dissonance to the tableau.
—Kevin Sintumuang, Outside, 16 Dec. 2025
See All Example Sentences for dissonance
Recent Examples of Synonyms for dissonance
Noun
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The discord surrounding the bill compounds headwinds facing the crypto industry during a rough few months that have seen prices fall significantly.—
Carlos Garcia,
Fortune,
27 Jan. 2026
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Though the series has been a hit for Netflix and made stars of its cast, rumors of tension, conflict, and discord have followed the cast.—
Ryan Coleman,
Entertainment Weekly,
22 Jan. 2026
Noun
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With its family friction and its outsiders’ view of a fast-growing city in a young, postwar country, Shame and Money casts a piercing, sorrowful gaze at the ground-level effects of globalization.—
Sheri Linden,
HollywoodReporter,
30 Jan. 2026
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Senator Thom Tillis has pledged to block Fed nominations until the Justice Department drops its Powell investigation—creating immediate friction.—
Güney Yıldız,
Forbes.com,
30 Jan. 2026
Noun
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Part of that discordance might be the fact that as a genre, rock has historically been difficult to define.—
Hannah Dailey,
Billboard,
19 Nov. 2025
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The sport of off-roading suffers from a fundamental discordance: The desire to get out into nature and the irreparable harm inherent in the process of off-roading.—
Tim Stevens,
ArsTechnica,
25 July 2025
Noun
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Prices for precious metals have been soaring as investors look for safer places to park their money amid threats of tariffs, still-high inflation, political strife and mountains of debt for governments worldwide.—
Arkansas Online,
Arkansas Online,
27 Jan. 2026
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Prices for precious metals have been soaring as investors look for safer places to park their money amid threats of tariffs, still-high inflation, political strife and mountains of debt for governments worldwide.—
Stan Choe,
Los Angeles Times,
26 Jan. 2026
Noun
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Experts say several factors have driven the sharp rise over the past year, including persistent concerns about inflation, ongoing global conflicts, and the possibility of interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.—
Brady Halbleib,
CBS News,
27 Jan. 2026
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This was in direct conflict with the Hatch Act, which restricts federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity.—
Arkansas Online,
Arkansas Online,
27 Jan. 2026
Noun
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The discordancy is so intriguing — like learning that Katharine Graham went to nude encounter sessions at Esalen, or Alan Greenspan was once in a Lynyrd Skynyrd cover band.—
New York Times,
New York Times,
17 Nov. 2021
Noun
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As tensions simmer, neighboring countries have been mediating between the two sides to avert a war, noting that any conflict could spread and destabilize the Middle East.—
Kevin Liptak,
CNN Money,
5 Feb. 2026
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The ceasefire pact attempted to halt the more than two-year-old war between Israel and Hamas.—
Arkansas Online,
Arkansas Online,
5 Feb. 2026
Noun
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His resistance to releasing any more information caused a schism among his supporters (and contributed to the resignation of his longtime ally Marjorie Taylor Greene) and set Congress up for an easy win.—
Kaitlyn Tiffany,
The Atlantic,
31 Jan. 2026
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The primary has made a growing schism between progressives and democratic socialists in New York City apparent.—
Josephine Stratman,
New York Daily News,
30 Jan. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Dissonance.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/dissonance. Accessed 6 Feb. 2026.
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