dissonance

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English dissonaunce,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French dissonance^[4][5][2] and directly borrowed from Late Latin dissonantia,^[3][6][7][8] which Etymonline and the Middle English Dictionary class as Medieval Latin.^[4][2] The French noun is recorded from the 14th century.^[9] That noun comes from Latin dissonāns, the present participle of dissonō (“to differ in sound”),^[3][4][6] from dis- (“apart”) and sonō (“to sound”),^[3][4] from Proto-Indo-European *swen- (“to sound”).^[4] The OED, in an entry not fully revised, gives only the Latin source.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Disagreement or discrepancy between things: before 1425, in a translation of Higden's Polychronicon, which renders Latin dissonantia in a passage on the “greet dissonaunce” among “olde men” over Homer's time.^[2][3] Etymonline dates this sense to the early 15th century,^[4] while the OED, whose entry is not fully revised, first has it before 1604^[9] and Dictionary.com dates the word to 1565–75.^[10]

Semantic evolution

English recorded the figurative sense first and the literal one later: the “inharmonious mixture of sounds” that Etymonline calls the word's etymological sense appears in the 1590s,^[4][7] in Bishop J. Hall in 1598.^[9] The technical use in music, for a combination of notes that seems to need resolving, followed in the mid 17th century.^[7] Johnson (1755) knew only the sense of sound, defining it as a mixture of harsh, unpleasing sounds and quoting Milton's “barbarous dissonance”.^[11] The older sense of disagreement gained a new specialized use in the phrase cognitive dissonance, recorded from 1957,^[9][8] for the discomfort of holding beliefs that conflict.^[12][8]

Timeline

• before 1425 – disagreement, discrepancy; spelled dissonaunce.^[2][3]
• 1598 – a harsh or jarring combination of sounds.^[9][4]
• mid 17th century – in music, a combination of notes that calls for resolution.^[7]
• 1957 – cognitive dissonance, in psychology.^[9][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A harsh or unpleasant combination of sounds; discord.^[13][12][8]
2. (music) A chord or interval that sounds unresolved or clashing, or the quality of such a combination.^[12][8][7] It is the opposite of consonance.^[12][8]
3. Lack of agreement or consistency; a conflict or incongruity: the dissonance between the firm's slogans and its conduct.^[13][12][8]
4. Short for cognitive dissonance, the unease caused by holding conflicting beliefs or attitudes.^[8][12]

Word family

• dissonancy
• dissonant
• cognitive dissonance

Related words

• assonance
• sonic
• sonorous
• sound
• consonance
• resonance
• resound

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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 Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c d e f g Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt