as in discord
a lack of agreement or harmony
the dissonance between what we are told and what we see with our own eyes
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Recent Examples of dissonance
The mismatch creates dissonance.
—
Benjamin Laker, Forbes.com, 27 Aug. 2025
Advertisement This is a signal of systemic dissonance between old assumptions and new capabilities.
—Ravi Kumar, Time, 25 Aug. 2025
The aggressive rhymes and ad libs of Chuck D and Flavor Flav, paired with Scott Ian’s precise but aggressive work on the guitar, blurred any dissonance between hip-hop and heavy metal.
—Jamal Michel, New York Times, 18 Aug. 2025
The eternal dissonance of the MTV Video Music Awards ostensibly celebrating a form no longer actively promoted on the brand’s flagship channel has long made the show a tricky tightrope to be walked.
—Andrew Unterberger, Billboard, 3 Sep. 2019
See All Example Sentences for dissonance
Benjamin Laker, Forbes.com, 27 Aug. 2025
Advertisement This is a signal of systemic dissonance between old assumptions and new capabilities.
—Ravi Kumar, Time, 25 Aug. 2025
The aggressive rhymes and ad libs of Chuck D and Flavor Flav, paired with Scott Ian’s precise but aggressive work on the guitar, blurred any dissonance between hip-hop and heavy metal.
—Jamal Michel, New York Times, 18 Aug. 2025
The eternal dissonance of the MTV Video Music Awards ostensibly celebrating a form no longer actively promoted on the brand’s flagship channel has long made the show a tricky tightrope to be walked.
—Andrew Unterberger, Billboard, 3 Sep. 2019
See All Example Sentences for dissonance
Recent Examples of Synonyms for dissonance
Noun
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Kirk was one of the slate of Republicans who called for more transparency around the Jeffrey Epstein files in a rare moment of discord within the party.—
Kinsey Crowley,
USA Today,
11 Sep. 2025
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However, the pair have had a history of discord.—
Erica Marrison,
PEOPLE,
9 Sep. 2025
Noun
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Our brains evolve against friction, which means challenges that are difficult enough to promote growth but not so overwhelming as to cause surrender.—
Cornelia C. Walther,
Forbes.com,
12 Sep. 2025
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Nevertheless, the deal appears to address the structural and competitive friction that has complicated the relationship between OpenAI and its largest investor, paving the way for the $500 billion startup to convert its for-profit arm into a public benefit corporation (PBC).—
Beatrice Nolan,
Fortune,
12 Sep. 2025
Noun
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The sport of off-roading suffers from a fundamental discordance: The desire to get out into nature and the irreparable harm inherent in the process of off-roading.—
Tim Stevens,
ArsTechnica,
25 July 2025
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Many of the tunes including sprawling intros and jam sessions, all melded together with discordance, reverb and instrumental solos.—
Audrey Gibbs,
The Tennessean,
2 July 2025
Noun
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That moment of silence itself soon erupted into House strife, with shouting on the floor.—
Alexis Simendinger,
The Hill,
11 Sep. 2025
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Against the backdrop of the golden sand dunes in Ninh Thuan province, family strife boils over when a son’s dream to dance to the beat of his own heart pits him against his father’s wishes.—
Nancy Tartaglione,
Deadline,
10 Sep. 2025
Noun
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Israel has also bombed Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Yemen in the course of the Gaza conflict.—
Jarrett Renshaw,
USA Today,
13 Sep. 2025
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If both polls and discussions with my friends are anything to go by, Americans feel forever locked in a state of political conflict.—
Sarah Stein Lubrano,
Mercury News,
13 Sep. 2025
Noun
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The discordancy is so intriguing — like learning that Katharine Graham went to nude encounter sessions at Esalen, or Alan Greenspan was once in a Lynyrd Skynyrd cover band.—
New York Times,
New York Times,
17 Nov. 2021
Noun
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The food industry has weathered trade wars before, but this feels different in its scope and unpredictability.—
Phil Lempert,
Forbes.com,
13 Sep. 2025
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Grain prices have returned to normalcy after the pandemic and the Ukraine-Russia war upset supply chains.—
Jonathan Lansner,
Oc Register,
13 Sep. 2025
Noun
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The quiet schism in sports over whether to acknowledge Kirk as an important figure cut down in a senseless murder may reflect today’s uneasy balance between conservative power and the norms of what are often regarded as apolitical spaces, particularly by conservatives themselves.—
Miles Klee,
Rolling Stone,
16 Sep. 2025
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Beneath the immediate conflict lies a deeper ideological schism.—
Khaled Hassan,
MSNBC Newsweek,
10 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Dissonance.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/dissonance. Accessed 17 Sep. 2025.
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