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
As someone who built her career by upending traditional dynamics and giving women more control over their interactions online, having no say in how her own story is told feels dissonant.
—
Eva Roytburg, Fortune, 20 Sep. 2025
Better-than-forecast retail sales for August out Tuesday contributed a sturdy reading to a dissonant set of macroeconomic signals.
—Michael Santoli, CNBC, 16 Sep. 2025
His new film, Highest 2 Lowest, which opened Friday, flips Akira Kurosawa’s mannered 1963 staple, High and Low, into a rowdy, topical, laugh-out-loud romp (starring Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright, and A$AP Rocky) that’s as beautifully jarring as a dissonant sax solo.
—Will Dukes, Rolling Stone, 17 Aug. 2025
Still, the moody, dissonant synths were transfixing.
—Hazlitt, 30 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for dissonant
Eva Roytburg, Fortune, 20 Sep. 2025
Better-than-forecast retail sales for August out Tuesday contributed a sturdy reading to a dissonant set of macroeconomic signals.
—Michael Santoli, CNBC, 16 Sep. 2025
His new film, Highest 2 Lowest, which opened Friday, flips Akira Kurosawa’s mannered 1963 staple, High and Low, into a rowdy, topical, laugh-out-loud romp (starring Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright, and A$AP Rocky) that’s as beautifully jarring as a dissonant sax solo.
—Will Dukes, Rolling Stone, 17 Aug. 2025
Still, the moody, dissonant synths were transfixing.
—Hazlitt, 30 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for dissonant
Recent Examples of Synonyms for dissonant
Adjective
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Arriving in January, the California Post will be Murdoch’s transplant of his right-leaning tabloid the New York Post, replete with shrill headlines and randy gossip.—
Peter Bart,
Deadline,
11 Sep. 2025
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One option is to simply double down on the existing approach and become shriller.—
Robert G. Eccles,
Forbes.com,
11 Aug. 2025
Adjective
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Even standard news programming is as noisy and disjointed as the output of a Bloomberg terminal.—
Ian Bogost,
The Atlantic,
23 Oct. 2025
-
Murray & His Blood Brothers, a blues-rock outfit comprised of singers and guitarists Mike Zito, Albert Castiglia and Jimmy Vivino, delivered a night of raucous, noisy blues and covers to the historic 2,360-person venue.—
Audrey Gibbs,
Nashville Tennessean,
23 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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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
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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
Adjective
-
Considering that Rebecca and Noah’s mom, Bina (Tovah Feldshuh), came off as equally unpleasant, Foster, Konner, and Kaplan kind of had to retool the character.—
Judy Berman,
Time,
23 Oct. 2025
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Despite being so unpleasant, hemorrhoid complications are surprisingly common.—
Daryl Austin,
USA Today,
21 Oct. 2025
Adjective
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Sometimes, it was described as fantastical, depicting unrealistic and strange juxtapositions, as though the black people in his paintings had wandered into a genre or set of conditions totally discordant with what the viewer considered their actual reality.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
14 Oct. 2025
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However, an investigation by The Bee this week found that Flora, 42, brings a history to the role that may be discordant with a party concerned with family values and fiscal conservatism.—
Kate Wolffe,
Sacbee.com,
11 Oct. 2025
Adjective
-
Don’t underestimate the power of classic shapes—like a set of metallic orbs in varying sizes.—
Audrey Lee,
Architectural Digest,
21 Oct. 2025
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In her case, Taylor went for gold in a metallic body-con dress, paired with Rainbow K jewelry.—
Renan Botelho,
Footwear News,
21 Oct. 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 29 Oct. 2025.
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