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  1. cacophony love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. Jarring, discordant sound; dissonance: heard a cacophony of horns during the traffic jam.
  2. n. The use of harsh or discordant sounds in literary composition, as for poetic effect.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A combination of discordant sounds; specifically, in rhetoric, a faulty choice or arrangement of words, producing inharmonious or discordant combinations of sounds, or too great frequency of such combinations as are for any reason unpleasant to the ear; also, the uncouth or disagreeable sound so produced: the opposite of euphony.
  2. n. In pathology, a depraved voice; an altered state of the voice.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A mix of discordant sounds; dissonance.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. (Rhet.) An uncouth or disagreable sound of words, owing to the concurrence of harsh letters or syllables.
  2. n. (Mus.) A combination of discordant sounds.
  3. n. (Med.) An unhealthy state of the voice.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a loud harsh or strident noise
  2. n. loud confusing disagreeable sounds

Etymologies

  1. From French cacophonie, from Ancient Greek κακοφωνία (kakophonia), from κακός (kakos, "bad") + φωνή (phonē, "voice"). (Wiktionary)
  2. French cacophonie, from Greek kakophōniā, from kakophōnos, cacophonous; see cacophonous. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “On one side was Andrew Keen, author of The Cult of the Amateur, railing against what he called the cacophony of Web 2.0 and the calamitous effects of user-generated content on our culture.”

    The great digital seduction

  • “Adding to the cacophony is the remodeling of the upstairs apartment.”

    A Saturday In Uzbekistan

  • “Lost in cacophony of the horse-race press coverage are the policies that the Republicans are pushing.”

    The Huffington Post: Joseph A. Palermo: Civic-Minded Plutocrats

  • “Tracking sports 'online cacophony is tricky enough when just focusing on league websites.”

    NBC's Michaels making Olympic Games comeback

  • “Their cacophony is making the biggest mark of the information age.”

    We are all the media

  • “Walk but a few yards, and the cacophony is swallowed by a silence profound and sombre.”

    Waiting for Spring « A Fly in Amber

  • “Note: I employed the word cacophony in yesterday's entry before reading the newspaper.”

    Archive 2007-03-01

  • “I suppose those taking siestas nearby were going nuts but one man's cacophony is another's Beethoven.”

    Noise

  • “It's not easy telling our story in a place where the cacophony is deafening and the competition stiff -- where everyone has a story to tell and the Americans tend to find their own story most interesting.”

    A Perspective for Canadians: the Current State and Future Directions for Canada-U.S. Relations

  • “I believe that the 1800 Obi was similarly monumental, graphic, and insistent to its audience in cathecting all racial conflict and arguments over slavery ultimately onto the severed head of Jack (its Medusa) and, though his sacrificial destruction, seeming to eradicate this teeming cacophony from the Empire with deliberate force, supposedly to the benefit of slaves and masters alike.”

    Directing Obi in the Year 2000

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antonyms (2)

Words with the opposite meaning

  1. euphony
  1. harmony

hypernyms (2)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. noise
  1. dissonance

same context (22)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. clamor
  2. din
  3. uproar
  4. blare
  1. screech
  2. crescendo
  3. peal
  4. hubbub
  1. tumult
  2. bellow
  3. racket
  4. jangle
  1. clangor
  2. babble
  3. wail
  4. downpour
  1. rumble
  2. roar
  3. reverberation
  4. bedlam
  1. medley
  2. chorus

reverse dictionary (3)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. cacofony
  1. cacophonia
  1. cacophony

tags (5)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. often misspelled
  1. pun
  1. figure of speech
  1. caco-
  1. SATWOTD

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tagging (2)

Words tagged ‘cacophony’

  1. cacophany
  1. caucophony

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Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘cacophony’.

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Comments

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  • adtsunami I particularly enjoy the adjectival form, 'cacophonous!' But kind of hard to use without sounding like a word snob... Nov 15, 2008

  • bilby Despite a promising level of unruliness, cacophony's audition lacked enough - how was it written in the margin notes ... malignancy? - to secure a contract as a My Little Phony. Oct 27, 2008

  • frindley I'd pronounce it ka-KO-fo-nee, with first syllable to rhyme with "cack" and a stress on the second syllable, which rhymes with "coffer".

    Great word! Oct 27, 2008

  • lambert Is it pronounced KAH-CO-PHO-NEE or is it prounounced some other way? Oct 27, 2008

  • milosrdenstvi From the Greek kakos (bad) and phonē (sound) Aug 13, 2008

  • shevek Cacophony sounds like shit. May 28, 2008

  • thebighenry counterfeit caca Apr 27, 2008

  • kingrat47 I actually think it's a great word because it sounds like what it is-a particularly complex onomatopeia. Dec 10, 2006

  • seanahan a rather beautiful sounding word, I think Dec 2, 2006

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‘cacophony’ has been looked up 10798 times, loved by 56 people, added to 281 lists, commented on 9 times, and has a Scrabble score of 21.