Trivia Time

Which sound could be described as a cacophony?

Test Your Knowledge

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.

---

cacophony British  

/ kəˈkɒfənɪ /

noun

1. harsh discordant sound; dissonance

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

---

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

The recorded confessions, layered over one another until they become an unintelligible cacophony, represent just one piece of the 25 paintings, photographs and interactive displays in the exhibition.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 2026

Certainly the music played a big part, the children busking on every spare square of pavement, a joyful cacophony of tin whistle, fiddle, bodhrán.

From BBC ● Aug. 10, 2026

And while Grande later insisted the break was pre-planned and not “reactive or impulsive,” there’s no doubt the announcement was timed to dull the cacophony of both the jeers and cheers.

From Salon ● Aug. 8, 2026

The cacophony is yielding more questions than answers.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026

There is a cacophony of horns, but the cars do not move.

From "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman

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 collective, overlapping cacophonies from those larger waves, thought to be produced when behemoth black holes lurking in the centers of galaxies collide, are what the NANOGrav collaboration has been working to capture.

From Scientific American ● Feb. 3, 2021

But the score is beautiful, with patterns and loops and cacophonies that echo Evan’s mind.

From New York Times ● Aug. 8, 2016

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