harmony
Americannoun
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harmonies
plural
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agreement; accord; harmonious relations.
- Synonyms:
- friendship, amity, peace, unity, concord
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a consistent, orderly, or pleasing arrangement of parts; congruity.
- Synonyms:
- consonance, consistency, correspondence, conformity
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Music.
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any simultaneous combination of tones.
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the simultaneous combination of tones, especially when blended into chords pleasing to the ear; chordal structure, as distinguished from melody and rhythm.
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the science of the structure, relations, and practical combination of chords.
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an arrangement of the contents of the Gospels, either of all four or of the first three, designed to show their parallelism, mutual relations, and differences.
noun
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agreement in action, opinion, feeling, etc; accord
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order or congruity of parts to their whole or to one another
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agreeable sounds
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music
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a collation of the material of parallel narratives, esp of the four Gospels
Synonym Usage
See symmetry. Harmony, melody in music suggest a combination of sounds from voices or musical instruments. Harmony is the blending of simultaneous sounds of different pitch or quality, making chords: harmony in part singing; harmony between violins and horns. Melody is the rhythmical combination of successive sounds of various pitch, making up the tune or air: a tuneful melody to accompany cheerful words.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of harmony
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English armonye, from Middle French, from Latin harmonia, from Greek harmonía “joint, framework, agreement, harmony,” akin to hárma “chariot,” harmós “joint,” ararískein “to join together”
Explanation
Harmony is the sound of things that go together well — people singing in harmony are in tune with each other. Best friends should be in harmony most of the time if they want to stay best buds! Harmony is a noun that describes an agreement, such as in feeling, sound, look, feel, or smell. It’s necessary for roommates to be able to live in harmony in a small space, or they’re in for a wake-up call. In music, harmony is a pleasing combination and progression of chords. If it makes you wince, it’s lacking harmony. Synonyms for harmony include accord, concord, cooperation, like-mindedness, and unanimity. Antonyms, on the other hand, range from clash and disagreement to discord.
Vocabulary lists containing harmony
Unit 1: Telling Details
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25 Words from "Baseball and Black History"
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100 SAT Words Beginning with "H"
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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.
See Examples For:
We can all use more joyous nonsense, including musicians who simply want to add more harmony to the world.
From Salon ● Sep. 13, 2026
"I think that was another huge thing in those barriers coming down between Liam and Noel was that suddenly there's this togetherness and harmony."
From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026
His verse included his debut collection, “The Broken Ground,” and his celebrated Sabbath Poems series, which explored living in harmony with the land.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 2026
The crowd listened in silence as the Polynesians, wearing blue fire uniforms, sang a Tahitian hymn in harmony while two of them strummed ukuleles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 30, 2026
The hope was that all of us would mingle in heterogeneous harmony, deepening the quality of student life across the board.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
The emotions are big, dumb and messy, but no one told that to the harmonies.
From Salon ● Oct. 4, 2026
“Neon Signs,” with vocals by Andrew Wyatt of electro-pop trio Miike Snow, has an appealing groove and worthy harmonies, but you can’t help but wish the chorus were considerably better.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 22, 2026
Taylor also revealed how the group perfected their trademark harmonies by singing in a cave on a Cornish beach because they loved the "big sound".
From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2026
The bouncy freestyle rhythm in “Soho” melts into feverish pop harmonies.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2026
To change this, he promoted simplified harmonies that made the melody the most prominent aspect of the music, and downgraded the importance of the other vocal parts to support the melody.
From "Music and the Child" by Natalie Sarrazin
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.
