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Which sound could be described as a cacophony?

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cacophony

American  

[kuh-kof-uh-nee] / kəˈkɒf ə ni /

noun

cacophonies plural

1. 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.

2. a discordant and meaningless mixture of sounds.

   The sound effects included a cacophony of hoots, cackles, and wails.

3. Music. frequent use of harsh, discordant notes or chords that seem to be patternless and without connection to each other.

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cacophony British  

/ kəˈkɒfənɪ /

noun

1. harsh discordant sound; dissonance

2. the use of unharmonious or dissonant speech sounds in language

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• cacophonic
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• cacophonies
  plural

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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cacophony cacophonies

Substitute Keith Evans replied for a rocked Kerry, but Jack Carney's nailed two-pointed effort put Mayo 1-14 to 1-9 ahead and amid a barely conceivable cacophony of noise from the Croke Park stands.

From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026

The cacophony is yielding more questions than answers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026

Amid a cacophony of honking horns, the family struggles to identify the shuttle bus that will take them to their rental car.

From Barron's ● May 27, 2026

And in floundering the ending, “Undertone” reminds us that tranquility can be far more unsettling than a cacophony of sight and sound.

From Salon ● Mar. 15, 2026

A cacophony of boos and catcalls rolled down the grandstand for a full two minutes.

From "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand

At times, they nearly doubled the length of their calls and amplified their whistles, in a sense shouting, to be heard above cacophonies of white noise or a recording of a pressure washer.

From New York Times ● Jan. 12, 2023

But much of the prominent fiction of 2022 met the moment and captured this fragmentation, thick with code-switching, style-shifting and cacophonies of anxious narration.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 20, 2022

The cacophony of viewpoints in a nation unafraid to express them seemed to yield what such cacophonies often yield: muddle.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 21, 2022

The cacophonies indirectly and directly harm animals, of course, interfering with their reproductive patterns, reducing their habitats, fragmenting their communities and sometimes killing them outright.

From Scientific American ● Mar. 24, 2022

I have corrected all typographical errors,–then all slips of the pen,–then many cacophonies of language,–moreover, verbal and real blunders enough; but the conceits and the poetical tulips I have seldom rooted out.

From Hesperus or Forty-Five Dog-Post-Days Vol. I. A Biography by Jean Paul

Related Words

• noise