Definitions

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

  • adjective Not being in accord; conflicting.
  • adjective Disagreeable in sound; harsh or dissonant.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Not harmoniously related or connected; disagreeing; incongruous; contradictory; being at variance; clashing: as, discordant opinions; discordant rules or principles.
  • Opposite; contrary; not coincident: as, the discordant attractions of comets or of different planets.
  • Inharmonious; dissonant; harsh, grating, or disagreeable to the ear.

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

  • adjective Disagreeing; incongruous; being at variance; clashing; opposing; not harmonious.
  • adjective (Mus.) Dissonant; not in harmony or musical concord; harsh; jarring.
  • adjective (Geol.) Said of strata which lack conformity in direction of bedding, either as in unconformability, or as caused by a fault.

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

  • adjective not in harmony or accord
  • adjective harsh or dissonant sounding
  • adjective public health serodiscordant
  • adjective geology of a differing type of rock cutting across a formation

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

  • adjective not in agreement or harmony
  • adjective lacking in harmony

Etymologies

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Examples

  • To avoid this nefarious post-conflict infection trap, treatment programs must be paired with commensurate prevention efforts that address epidemic drivers, including concurrent multiple sexual partnerships, long-term discordant couples (where one partner is infected and the other uninfected), and early sexual debut.

    Peter Navario: Zimbabwe's Second Wave? Peter Navario 2010

  • This singular ambition was realized in the remarkable building that now loomed before me, whose design was characterized by a discordant—if not utterly bizarre—juxtaposition of architectural embellishments, from medieval battlements, to Corinthian columns, to Oriental minarets, to the sort of elaborately scrolled buttresses characteristic of the Italian baroque—the entire, unparalleled combination giving to the whole an air of Arabian Nights fantasticalness, as though the building had sprung full-blown from the teeming reveries of an inordinately imaginative child.

    Nevermore Harold Schechter 1999

  • Deleuzean Kant would describe as a discordant harmony.

    Rhyming Sensation in 'Mont Blanc' 2008

  • Blue and green have been termed discordant, and in painting they may undoubtedly be made so.

    Field's Chromatography or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists George Field

  • For music to be beautiful, the voices must not only be true, clear, and distinct from one another, but also united together in such a way that there may arise a just consonance and harmony which is not unfitly termed a discordant harmony or rather harmonious discord.

    Treatise on the Love of God 1567-1622 1884

  • If the pair were discordant, that is one had schizophrenia and the other did not then the non - schizophrenic was followed for at least 13 years to see if it developed later.

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows psychexchange.co.uk@slideshare.net(psychexchange.c 2010

  • If the pair were discordant, that is one had schizophrenia and the other did not then the non - schizophrenic was followed for at least 13 years to see if it developed later.

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows psychexchange.co.uk@slideshare.net(psychexchange.c 2010

  • I also COMPLETELY disagree that Obama's speech was "discordant".

    Matalin: With Afghan surge, Obama resembles George W. Bush 2009

  • Meanwhile, Peach's poo-colored top is "discordant" with her polka dot skirt

    Una LaMarche: Project Runway Episode 2 Recap: Size Matters 2010

  • An advertisement for a cholesterol drug, for instance, could be considered misleading if it contains upbeat music and "discordant" images of patients benefiting from the medicine while the risk information is detailed.

    FDA Gives Advice on Divulging Risks 2009

Comments

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  • "Justice is sweet and musical; but injustice is harsh and discordant." -- Henry David Thoreau

    October 22, 2007