consonance

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English consonancie, also consonaunce,^[2] borrowed from Old French consonance (“consonance, rhyme”),^[3][2][4][5] and directly borrowed from Latin cōnsonantia (“harmony, agreement”).^[3][2][5] The word in French is recorded from the 12th century and is now written consonnance;^[3][6] in Anglo-Norman, from about 1150, it meant a note in a harmonious series.^[7] The Latin noun comes from cōnsonāns (“sounding together, agreeing”), the present participle of cōnsonō (“to sound together, sound aloud”),^[3][6] from com- (“with, together”) and sonō (“to sound, make a noise”), from Proto-Indo-European *swen- (“to sound”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Harmony of sounds: before 1387, in Trevisa's translation of Higden, as consonancie: "Tubal..was fyndere of consonancie and of musyk to fore Noe".^[2] Etymonline likewise dates the sense "pleasing combination of sounds" to the late 14th century.^[3] The OED, which has no record before Lydgate in 1430, calls "agreement, harmony" the earliest sense in English.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The word began in music and cosmology: Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus uses it for the harmony of the spheres and for perfect chords, the fourth, the fifth and the octave.^[2] From there it spread to other fixed relationships, such as the mixing of colours, and to agreement in fact or opinion, which Etymonline dates to the early 15th century.^[2][3] The use for like sounds in words appears with Puttenham in 1589,^[6][3] at first as an equivalent of assonance;^[6] it now applies especially to consonants.^[4][8] The technical musical sense, a consonant interval, is recorded from 1624 in Wotton, and the sounding together of notes in harmony from 1694.^[6] The phrase in consonance with is recorded from 1828,^[6] and in acoustics the word has been used since 1882 of a body sounding in sympathy with another.^[6]

Timeline

• before 1387 – harmony of sounds, as consonancie.^[2]
• before 1398 – the harmony of the spheres; a perfect musical chord.^[2]
• 1430 – agreement, harmony, in Lydgate.^[6]
• 1589 – correspondence of sounds in words or syllables, in Puttenham.^[6][3]
• 1594 – a pleasing combination of sounds.^[6]
• 1624 – a consonant interval or combination of two notes, in Wotton.^[6]
• 1694 – the sounding together of two notes in harmony, in Holder.^[6]
• 1828 – in consonance with.^[6]
• 1882 – in acoustics, sounding in sympathy with another body.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. Harmony or agreement between things, ideas or people, often in the phrase in consonance with: Her actions were in consonance with her stated aims.^[8][9][6]
2. In prosody, the repetition of consonant sounds with different vowels, especially at the ends of words, as in mist and last.^[8][10][11]
3. Close correspondence or recurrence of similar sounds in words; assonance.^[9][6]
4. (music) A combination of notes that sounds pleasing or at rest, or the interval between them; the opposite of dissonance.^[8][6][4]
5. (acoustics) The sounding of a body in sympathy with another of the same pitch sounded near it.^[6]

Word family

• inconsonance
• consonancy

Related words

• consonant
• dissonance
• assonance
• sonant
• sonorous
• resonance
• sound

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
8. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
11. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster