cacophony
Americannoun
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harsh or unpleasant discordance of sound; dissonance.
After living in the country, it's difficult for me to adjust to the cacophony produced by city traffic.
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a discordant and meaningless mixture of sounds.
The sound effects included a cacophony of hoots, cackles, and wails.
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Music. frequent use of harsh, discordant notes or chords that seem to be patternless and without connection to each other.
noun
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harsh discordant sound; dissonance
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the use of unharmonious or dissonant speech sounds in language
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of cacophony
First recorded in 1650–60; from New Latin cacophonia, from Greek kakophōnía; equivalent to caco- + -phony
Explanation
A cacophony is a mishmash of unpleasant sounds, often at loud volume. It's what you'd hear if you gave instruments to a group of four-year-olds and asked them to play one of Beethoven's symphonies. A cacophony is a jarring, discordant mix of sounds that have no business being played together. When the orchestra tunes up before a show, it sounds like a cacophony because each musician is playing a completely different tune, at different times, and at different volumes. Once the show begins, that cacophony had better turn into a melody, or audiences will demand a refund. This allegedly occurred during the first time Igor Stravinsky's score for the ballet "The Rite of Spring" was performed because its difficult composition and discordant tone was shocking.
Vocabulary lists containing cacophony
Fahrenheit 451
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Rhetoric
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Grade 10, List 2
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A product of an anarchic group called the Cacophony Society, SantaCon has come to be seen by many as an annoying pub crawl.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 11, 2025
The closing ceremony was entitled "Harmonious Cacophony" and involved both able-bodied actors and others with disabilities.
From Fox News • Sep. 5, 2021
The Brewery at Abigale: The brewer at the Hermosa Beach brewpub is known for showcasing hops in his IPAs, and Cacophony IPA is no exception.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 17, 2014
A version of this review appears in print on February 22, 2014, on page C6 of the with the headline: Cacophony Amid the Cool Marble.
From New York Times • Feb. 21, 2014
Cacophony, ka-kof′ō-ni, n. a disagreeable sound: discord of sounds.—adjs.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 1 of 4: A-D) by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
