Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A harsh, disagreeable combination of sounds; discord.
- n. Lack of agreement, consistency, or harmony; conflict: "In Vietnam, reality fell away and dissonance between claim and fact filled the void” ( Michael Janeway).
- n. Music A combination of tones contextually considered to suggest unrelieved tension and require resolution.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The quality or fact of being dissonant; an inharmonious mixture or combination of sounds; harshness of combined sounds; discord.
- n. Specifically— In music: The combination of tones that are so far unrelated to each other as to produce beats: distinguished from consonance. See beat, n.
- n. The interval between two such tones. See discord.
- n. Discord in general; disagreement; incongruity; inconsistency.
Wiktionary
- n. a harsh, discordant combination of sounds
- n. conflicting notes that are not overtones of the note or chord sounding
- n. a state of disagreement or conflict
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A mingling of discordant sounds; an inharmonious combination of sounds; discord.
- n. Want of agreement; incongruity.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a conflict of people's opinions or actions or characters
- n. the auditory experience of sound that lacks musical quality; sound that is a disagreeable auditory experience
- n. disagreeable sounds
Examples
“The reason for this dissonance is the loophole larded corporate tax code here in America.”
Wonk Room » Republicans Falsely Argue That Surtax Would Disproportionally Affect Small Businesses
“The biggest byproduct of this cognitive dissonance is our completely screwed up tax code which is everybody's preferred vehicle for enacting this or that social program which is ostensibly for lower income folks but the value of any "social program" related deduction correlates with one's tax rate.”
“But cognitive dissonance is a favorite pastime of people who preach about Evil.”
“Cognitive dissonance is the idea that when people do something painful, they become more committed to the goal.”
“The action-packed evening — including music by Haydn, Mozart, Wolf, and Messiaen — will culminate with the 1923 version of Paul Hindemith's Das Marienleben, one of the truly great song cycles, and one of my favorite rebuttals to the old generalization that dissonance is only good for portraying angst and violence.”
“The fascinating (and disturbing) thing about cognitive dissonance is that instead of working to reconcile the two disparate beliefs, the opposing evidence will actually make the original belief stronger – because that relieves the tension.”
“Cognitive dissonance is the psychological term for the tension one feels when holding two contradictory views, as well as the driving need to relieve that tension.”
“That's where the dissonance is greatest, it seems to me, and the public interest weirdest.”
“Or maybe the dissonance is constructive tension for your blog.”
The IQ Revolution?, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“So cognitive dissonance is a driving force leading to innovative thoughts which spur modified beliefs and greater progress.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘dissonance’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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magus's list
synchronicity, ascension, gravitas, requiem, totem, artifice, symmetry, dissonance, harmony, aloft, inversion
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Mark
scrawl, blemish, spot, mar, damage, speckle, bespatter, splash, smirch, stain, tattoo, impress and 20 more...
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My favorites
foible, sidereal, amygdala, woodnote, cogitate, silvern, ollalieberry, ramify, diaphanous, surreality, myopia, subcelestial and 64 more...
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Visual Design
Words used in the visual design field
aethetics, composition, harmony, entropy, dissonance, concrete, line, invention, linear, mass, motion, order and 24 more...
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-ance
the act of; quality or state of being; a thing that
utterance, vigilance, conveyance, dissonance, constancy, valance, consonance
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