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
-
Still, the shrill alarm that echoed on Friday morning as Israel announced airstrikes on neighboring Iran gave her that familiar feeling.—
Isabel Rivera,
Miami Herald,
15 June 2025
-
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
Adjective
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That means that for years, garbage trucks had to back down this dead end to make pickups -- a regular, noisy nuisance.—
Arkansas Online,
Arkansas Online,
15 June 2025
-
Swapping in the wrong kind could slightly reduce your range or make the ride noisier.—
Melanie Marshall,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
12 June 2025
Adjective
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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
-
Diana, for example, when anything unpleasant was said in her presence, would slowly blink her eyes in an incredible act of denial.—
Rosemary Counter,
Time,
25 June 2025
-
Some of these vitamins have quality issues, like a fishy or unpleasant taste.—
BestReviews,
Mercury News,
25 June 2025
Adjective
-
The findings offer a compelling response to Crick’s dilemma, reconciling the discordant timescales to explain how ephemeral molecules maintain memories that last a lifetime.—
Ajdina Halilovic,
Quanta Magazine,
7 May 2025
-
Homes, bars, and dance halls pulsed with sound in a discordant, desperate attempt to stave off death.—
Christina Coulter,
People.com,
4 June 2025
Adjective
-
Putting the uranium into metallic form is a critical step towards building nuclear weapons.—
Geoff Brumfiel,
NPR,
26 June 2025
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It’s finished in unique deep blue that has a subtle metallic sheen when viewed in the right light.—
Bryan Hood,
Robb Report,
25 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 30 Jun. 2025.
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