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Definition
not going well together; or conflictespecially in these two senses:
- unpleasant musical sound
- inconsistency or conflict between beliefs and actions such as voluntarily taking actions that conflict with beliefs, or holding two conflicting beliefs (also called "cognitive dissonance")
- I find the dissonance in her music disturbing.
dissonance = conflicting sounds
- She was especially excited to learn about the famous experiments in cognitive dissonance.
- Within the administration, there are signs of dissonance about how to proceed.
- The meeting ended on a dissonant note.
- One advantage of being thoughtless, is you don't suffer as much from dissonance when you act in contradiction to your stated beliefs.
- A felt a certain dissonance after arguments with his girlfriend, but he was still convinced he was a loving and supportive man.
- At Magee, they did a wonderful job of simultaneously communicating two dissonant things. In so many words, they told parents that (1) Your child is special and we understand that his medical needs are unique, and (2) Don't worry, we've had a million babies like yours come through here.Randy Pausch -- The Last Lecture
- There was a dissonance, faint, every two minutes across the water, and finally even that disappeared.David Guterson -- Snow Falling on Cedars
- There is always this dissonance between what you see and hear.Malcolm Gladwell -- Blink
- There was the awful dissonance of a lone horse galloping riderless.Laura Hillenbrand -- Seabiscuit
- Grover Underwood and a team of satyrs danced around with their panpipes, playing harmonies so dissonant that the earthen-shelled ghosts cracked apart.Rick Riordan -- The Blood of Olympus
- Dissonant notes intersperse with the melody.Suzanne Collins -- The Hunger Games
- The place doesn't even look open, but Cressida pushes through the front door, setting off a dissonant chiming.Suzanne Collins -- Mockingjay
- Dissonance and harmonic tension slowly resolved into warm chords—the sound was transcendent.Bryan Stevenson -- Just Mercy
- As the music, enlivened by unscored dissonances, swelled to a raucous climax, she gripped the wooden sides of her chair, closed her eyes.Ian McEwan -- Atonement
- From another came a dissonant piping that made the dragon lash his tail wildly from side to side.George R.R. Martin -- A Clash of Kings
- Dissonant brass and piano sounds as the rooms dim out to darkness and the outer walls appear in the night light.Tennessee Williams -- A Streetcar Named Desire
- What dissonance can quench it?Thomas Wolfe -- Look Homeward, Angel
- It bounced off the ant's forehead with a dissonant twang.Rick Riordan -- The Trials of Apollo
- Perhaps Brandt's as well, though he did what he could to ignore Walter, plugging his ears and humming a dissonant tune.Stephenie Meyer -- The Host
dissonant = conflicting (not going well together)
Dictionary / pronunciation — Google®Dictionary list — Onelook.com®Wiki: musical dissonanceWiki: pyschological dissonance