Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A harsh, disagreeable combination of sounds; discord.
  • noun Lack of agreement, consistency, or harmony; conflict.
  • noun Music A combination of tones contextually considered to suggest unrelieved tension and require resolution.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The quality or fact of being dissonant; an inharmonious mixture or combination of sounds; harshness of combined sounds; discord.
  • noun 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.
  • noun The interval between two such tones. See discord.
  • noun Discord in general; disagreement; incongruity; inconsistency.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A mingling of discordant sounds; an inharmonious combination of sounds; discord.
  • noun Want of agreement; incongruity.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun a harsh, discordant combination of sounds
  • noun music conflicting notes that are not overtones of the note or chord sounding
  • noun a state of disagreement or conflict

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a conflict of people's opinions or actions or characters
  • noun the auditory experience of sound that lacks musical quality; sound that is a disagreeable auditory experience
  • noun disagreeable sounds

Etymologies

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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 2009

  • But cognitive dissonance is a favorite pastime of people who preach about Evil.

    Bring your own examples. 2009

  • 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.

    Archive 2009-04-01 Matthew Guerrieri 2009

  • 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.

    What if an Atheist saw an Angel? | Heretical Ideas Magazine 2009

  • 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.

    Now in the moonlight, a man could sing it Matthew Guerrieri 2009

  • But cognitive dissonance is a favorite pastime of people who preach about Evil.

    Bring your own examples. 2009

  • 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.

    Do Americans Secretly Harbor Big Government Desires? xtra 2009

  • Cognitive dissonance is the idea that when people do something painful, they become more committed to the goal.

    The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists 2010

  • 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.

    Archive 2009-03-01 Ilya 2009

  • Cognitive dissonance is the idea that when people do something painful, they become more committed to the goal.

    The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists 2010

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