Did you know?
The root of "dissonant" is the Latin verb sonare. Can you guess what "sonare" means? Here's a hint: some related derivatives are "sonata," "supersonic," and "resonance." Does it sound to you as if "sonare" has something to do with sound? If so, you're right. In fact, sonare means "to sound, is related to the Latin noun sonus (meaning "sound"), and is an ancestor of the English word sound. "Dissonant" includes the negative prefix dis-. What is "dissonant," therefore, sounds inharmonic, conflicting, or clashing.
Synonyms
Examples of dissonant in a Sentence
Elisabetta Povoledo, New York Times, 8 Apr. 2024
During the central crisis of Beethoven’s Funeral March, hammering octaves in the bass register, again with the pedal held down, unleash a dissonant boom that is in some ways more unnerving than the corresponding passage in orchestral form.
—Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 25 Mar. 2024
The new series is emotionally hollow, tonally dissonant and yells its themes at the audience like an unhinged political podcast.
—Kelly Lawler, USA TODAY, 22 Feb. 2024
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser’s government, seemingly caught by surprise by the Virginia deal, has responded with a slightly dissonant two-track strategy.
—Ashraf Khalil, Fortune, 4 Mar. 2024
Or might just scare people a little bit too much, or are just too dissonant and too hard to take?
—Michaela Zee, Variety, 29 Feb. 2024
Most people who compose for film think the music and the actions of the people in the film have to be consonant or dissonant.
—Lily Moayeri, SPIN, 9 Feb. 2024
But Ruo has the narrator read out the book’s entire introduction over the somber clanging of mildly dissonant chords, sapping the score of momentum and focus.
—An Epic Set, Vulture, 16 Jan. 2024
The huge, dissonant piano cluster at the end seems to signify Ellington’s justified anger about Gershwin’s continued eclipse of him as the great American composer, long after Gershwin was dead.
—Ethan Iverson, New York Times, 26 Jan. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'dissonant.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Dissonant.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dissonant. Accessed 24 Apr. 2024.
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