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Meanings of dissonant in English

Lacking in harmony.

Related terms

Not in accord.

Unmusical.

Usage of dissonant in English
1
His rhymes are often dissonant; in his Georgick he admits broken lines.
Lives of the Poets, Volume 1
2
Now, with dissonant irony, it houses a major exhibition of Le Corbusier.
The Guardian
3
And, at moments, this silence became dissonant with the clamour of unreason.
In Secret
4
A dissonant hum serves as disconcerting accompaniment to the otherwise silent room.
Wired
5
He snores on this note, he laughs on that, dissonant, unescapeable, unchanging.
Here are Ladies
6
What rumours go now among the people, what dissonant and diverse opinions!
The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy
7
It was harsh and dissonant, a demented, jarring curse of a sound.
The Plains of Passage
8
I don't think these seemingly dissonant trends are actually in conflict at all.
The Verge
9
He had done it because he wanted to hear something dissonant and beautiful.
Hemlock Grove
10
At Magee, they did a wonderful job of simultaneously communicating two dissonant things.
The last lecture
11
And then there's moments of really high modernism … aggressively dissonant and irregular.
Wired
12
With dissonant leaders the compassion seeps away and it's about management by diktat.
The Irish Times
13
By and by, silence gradually succeeded the various dissonant sounds below.
"My Novel" — Volume 06
14
A certain dissonant chord in our little circle is Aniela's mother.
Without Dogma: A Novel of Modern Poland
15
There was another murmur, a buzzing dissonant with the airship's drone.
Perdido Street Station
16
A few abrupt, dissonant discords would, invariably, send them scurrying to their holes.
The Dawn of Reason; or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals
About this term
More collocations
Dissonant through the time
Dissonant across language varieties
United Kingdom
Common
United States of America
Common