dissonance

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“
The band makes liberal use of reverb (particularly on the drums), dissonance, and bass distortion.

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Definitions (12)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun A harsh, disagreeable combination of sounds; discord.
  2. noun Lack of agreement, consistency, or harmony; conflict: "In Vietnam, reality fell away and dissonance between claim and fact filled the void” (Michael Janeway).
  3. noun Music A combination of tones contextually considered to suggest unrelieved tension and require resolution.

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Examples (50)

  • Out of the narrative grew a theme of mounting dissonance, anxiety and fear. —  Died in the Wool - Ngaio Marsh - Alleyn 13: 1944
  • The research also took into account parental influence, neural development in adolescence related to self-control, social capital - that is, the resources made available to people who are in social relationships - and cognitive dissonance, which is the motivation to behave according to one's beliefs to avoid the conflict of inconsistent thoughts or attitudes. —  LifeSiteNews.com Headlines
  • I was reminded of As I Lay Dying - of a cognitive dissonance, a deliberately broken, heteroglossic approach to narrative that is much more often associated with modern authors like Joyce and Dos Passos but works remarkably well here. —  The Millions
  • I vaguely remember someone actually doing a different study on physical vs. mental arousal which suggested that the dissonance is less the more comfortable a woman is with her sexuality —  Pharyngula
  • In the case of wrong decisions, cognitive dissonance is a state of tension produced by two ideas, attitudes, or beliefs that are inconsistent. —  BloggingStocks
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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (1)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. = Dutch dissonans = German dissonanz = Danish Swedish dissonans, from P. dissonance = Spanish disonancia = Portuguese dissonancia = Italian dissonanza, dissonanzia, from Late Latin dissonantia, dissonance, from Latin dissonan(t-)s, dissonant: see dissonant. Cf. assonance, consonance, resonance.
 

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/ˈdɪsənəns/
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