Advertisement

dissonance (n.)

early 15c., dissonaunce, "disagreement, discrepancy, incongruity, inconsistency" (between things), from Old French dissonance and directly from Medieval Latin dissonantia, from Latin dissonantem, present participle of dissonare "differ in sound," from dis- "apart" (see dis-) + sonare "to sound, make a noise," from PIE *swene-, from root *swen- "to sound." Etymological sense, "inharmonious mixture or combination of sounds," is from 1590s in English.

Others are reading

Advertisement
Definitions of dissonance from WordNet

dissonance (n.)
a conflict of people's opinions or actions or characters;
dissonance (n.)
the auditory experience of sound that lacks musical quality; sound that is a disagreeable auditory experience;
Synonyms: noise / racket
dissonance (n.)
disagreeable sounds;
From wordnet.princeton.edu