Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Jarring, discordant sound; dissonance: heard a cacophony of horns during the traffic jam.
- n. The use of harsh or discordant sounds in literary composition, as for poetic effect.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- 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.
- n. In pathology, a depraved voice; an altered state of the voice.
Wiktionary
- n. A mix of discordant sounds; dissonance.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. An uncouth or disagreable sound of words, owing to the concurrence of harsh letters or syllables.
- n. A combination of discordant sounds.
- n. An unhealthy state of the voice.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a loud harsh or strident noise
- n. loud confusing disagreeable sounds
Etymologies
- French cacophonie, from Greek kakophōniā, from kakophōnos, cacophonous; see cacophonous.
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.”
“Adding to the cacophony is the remodeling of the upstairs apartment.”
“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.”
“Their cacophony is making the biggest mark of the information age.”
“Walk but a few yards, and the cacophony is swallowed by a silence profound and sombre.”
“Note: I employed the word cacophony in yesterday's entry before reading the newspaper.”
“I suppose those taking siestas nearby were going nuts but one man's cacophony is another's Beethoven.”
“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.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cacophony’.
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probablyankita's list
Words are all I have to take your heart away
apartheid, techno-klutz, logorrheic, gordian knot, anodyne, odor of sanctity, finders keepers, foot-in-mouth dis..., dutch uncle, masquerade, smoke signals, furtive glance and 320 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( etymology )
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 837 more...
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phono-, phon-, -phony
relating to sound
phonograph, phonics, phonology, telephony, phoneme, phone, telephone, phonautograph, phonetic, phonebook, phonography, phonolite and 107 more...
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#faveword
Words chosen as favorites for the Twitter hashtag #faveword.
autumnal, grotto, chiaroscuro, sfumato, homunculus, zing, zest, effervescent, bewitch, avuncular, susurrus, Styrofoam and 205 more...
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Summers Vocab 1
Vocabulary for Mr. Summers.
melee, nexus, flippant, fiat, facile, euphemism, circuitous, cavalcade, perennial, surreptitious, discursive, cacophony
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GRE
abase, broach, brocade, burgeon, bungle, bureaucracy, burly, burnished, browbeat, brusque, bucolic, buffoonery and 20 more...
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SAT words
tergiversate, cymotrichous, vigilance, wince, consternation, cower, neutralize, euphony, cacophony, misanthrope, bibliophile, kleptomania and 81 more...
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brian's biffs
melancholy, bucolic, visceral, cacophony, burlesque, exogenous, epiphany, monetization, accretive, opulent, splendid, seismic and 9 more...
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Nouny
calumny, parsimony, gluttony, alimony, sanctimony, harmony, miscegeny, telephony, colony, antimony, larceny, mahogany and 26 more...
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caco-, cac-, kak-
bad or worst
Aliss I love to use this word. It's so fun to say and sounds just as it means. Sep 15, 2010
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