Dissonant

adj

adj ·3 syllables ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Exhibiting dissonance; not agreeing; not harmonizing or melodizing.

    "The music was filled with dissonant chords."

  2. 2
    Exhibiting dissonance; not agreeing or harmonizing. figuratively

    "Alaudinov's framing of himself, and by extension of the Chechen forces under his command, as a capable defensive body is also dissonant with the widespread perception of the efficacy of Chechen forces within the wider Russian information space."

Adjective
  1. 1
    not in accord wordnet
  2. 2
    lacking in harmony wordnet
  3. 3
    characterized by musical dissonance; harmonically unresolved wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
at variancedisharmoniousdiscordant;absonantantagonistic

Example

More examples

"Contemporary classical music is often very dissonant."

Etymology

From Middle French dissonant.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.