dissonance
- 01 C1 Advanced
a combination of musical notes that sound unpleasant, harsh, or unstable together.
a combination of sounds or musical notes that are discordant or lack harmony, often creating a sense of tension.
Simple“The composer used dissonance to make the audience feel nervous during the scary scene.”
In context“Modernist composers often employed deliberate dissonance to challenge traditional expectations of melodic resolution and tonal stability.”
UsageUncountable when referring to the general quality of sound; countable when referring to specific instances in a score.
- 02 C1 Advanced
a lack of agreement between two ideas, beliefs, or actions.
a state of disagreement or inconsistency between beliefs, values, or actions, often resulting in tension.
Simple“There is a dissonance between what the company says and how it treats its workers.”
In context“The cognitive dissonance felt by the subjects was evident when their long-held beliefs were directly contradicted by the new empirical evidence.”
UsageOften appears in the phrase 'cognitive dissonance' in psychological contexts.
SynonymsAntonyms
Borrowed from Middle French dissonance, from Latin dissonantia; by surface analysis, dis- + son- + -ance.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.