Make Your Point > Archived Issues > DISSONANCE
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pronounce
DISSONANCE:
Say it "DISS uh nunce."
To hear it, click here.
connect this word to others:
If you've heard a toddler bang on a piano, you've heard dissonance: a harsh, unmusical combination of sounds that offends your ears.
And if you've felt a mismatch between your beliefs and your behavior, you've felt cognitive dissonance: a harsh, unsettling combination of ideas that offends your heart. For example, what if I strongly believe that young children deserve the truth, but then I lie and say, "Thank you for playing piano for us; that sounds lovely"? I feel cognitive dissonance.
Either way, it's ugly and uncomfortable. You can call it dissonance (literally "things sounding apart"), or call it disc___ance (a clashing, literally "things with hearts apart"), or call it discon___ancy (literally "things not sounding together").
Could you recall those two synonyms? They're tough! If you need help to fill in the blank bits, you can think of how that first synonym, disc___ance, is related to other words about hearts, like cordial, courage, and concord. And for the second one, discon___ancy, you can think of how it's related to other words about sounds, like sound itself, resounding, consonant, and sonata.
(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)
definition:
The word "dissonance" has Latin roots that mean "sounding apart."
Literally speaking, dissonance is a harsh, ugly combination of two or more sounds, especially in music.
More figuratively speaking, dissonance is a lack of harmony or a lack of consistency. In other words, when there's dissonance within something, its parts don't match up, don't sound good together, or don't make sense together.
grammatical bits:
Part of speech: noun, both the countable kind ("there's a dissonance between those things") and the uncountable kind ("there's dissonance between those things").
Other common forms: dissonant, dissonantly.
how to use it:
This word is formal and common, with a negative tone.
You might be literal and talk about dissonance in a musical chord, or the dissonance among singers in a choir or players in a band. You might complain of the dissonance between two voices desperately trying to sing karaoke together. (Once you're up there, you can't hear yourself or your friend, either! Dissonance happens!)
Often, we're more figurative. We talk about the dissonance within something that's supposed to be consistent, or the dissonance between two things that are supposed to match up with each other: "the dissonance between her statements and her decisions," "the dissonance between his beliefs and his actions," "the dissonance between their interpretations of this situation," "the dissonance between the upbeat melody and the melancholy lyrics."
examples:
"The bell was used, while I was there, to call the workmen to their daily labor; but its tones were always mournful, and vibrated with strange dissonance across the sea."
— Samuel Adams Drake, Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast, 1875
"To the crowd of voters who gathered in the garden of a New Hampshire home on a serene summer’s day in June, Elizabeth Warren expressed her sincere gratitude. There was a dissonance, she acknowledged, between the 'gorgeous' setting and the bleak picture she would paint of a democracy in peril. 'Our country’s in real trouble,' Warren said, pacing as she spoke."
— Lauren Gambino, The Guardian, 8 July 2019
In an article titled "Too nice for the likes of us: why buying fancy stuff makes us miserable," the Guardian cites a study suggesting that when people splurge on luxury goods, they feel a painful dissonance, a mismatch between their true selves and the fancy people they're pretending to be.
has this page helped you understand "dissonance"?
study it:
Explain the meaning of "dissonance" without saying "inconsistency" or "inharmony."
try it out:
Often there's dissonance, or an uncomfortable contrast, between someone's public and private personalities.
Here's an example from the Guardian:
"Doris Day was in many ways the most interesting example of this dissonance between the public persona and often not entirely private reality."
That is, Day's public image was very wholesome and lighthearted, but her private life was deeply troubled and tragic.
With Doris Day in mind as an example, talk about another person with dissonant private and public lives.
before you review, play:
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
This month, our game is called "Recollections."
In each issue, I'll share a quote from some work--it might be a song, a poem, or a book--and you'll come up with that work's title. You can assemble the title, highlighted in the vertical blue line below, by recalling words to fit into the puzzle. Scrap paper might help!
From the previous issue:
"angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night"
Those words appear in the poem "Howl," by Allen Ginsberg.
If you'd like to review any of the words from the puzzle, give them a click: cachinnate, laborious, waive, dabble.
Try this one today:
"On and on the music plays,
Memories in paraphrase,
Falling past my window
Like the falling rain."
In what work does the quote above appear?
1) adjective: "common, worn-out, and boring"
2) adjective: "stubborn and hard-hearted, unwilling to change"
3) noun: "a loud, disorganized mob"
4) adjective: "widely known and easily recognized"
5) noun: "the lowest point, the worst point"
6) verb: "to make things up, as if by stitching"
7) verb: "to make people calm or peaceful"
review this word:
A. CONFLATION (a fusing together).
B. CONFLUENCE (a flowing together).
C. CONSONANCE (a sounding together).
2. The New York Times wrote, "For a party devoted to defending the working class, an address in one of the capital’s _____ neighborhoods _____ dissonant."
A. poorest .. looked
B. richest .. sounded
C. most diverse .. seemed
a final word:
I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.
I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.
From my blog:
36 ways to study words.
Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.
Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.
If you've heard a toddler bang on a piano, you've heard dissonance: a harsh, unmusical combination of sounds that offends your ears.
The word "dissonance" has Latin roots that mean "sounding apart."
Part of speech: noun, both the countable kind ("there's a dissonance between those things") and the uncountable kind ("there's dissonance between those things").
This word is formal and common, with a negative tone.
"The bell was used, while I was there, to call the workmen to their daily labor; but its tones were always mournful, and vibrated with strange dissonance across the sea."
Explain the meaning of "dissonance" without saying "inconsistency" or "inharmony."
Often there's dissonance, or an uncomfortable contrast, between someone's public and private personalities.
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
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