What does dissonance mean?
Dissonance is a noun describing a lack of harmony or agreement. Its original and still central sense is musical: when two or more notes sound together in a way that feels tense, clashing, or unresolved, listeners perceive dissonance, which composers often deliberately use to create drama before resolving into consonance. Beyond music, dissonance has become a key term for describing conflicts among ideas, beliefs, or values. The best-known example is 'cognitive dissonance,' a psychological concept introduced by Leon Festinger in 1957 to describe the discomfort people feel when their actions contradict their convictions — as when a smoker who knows smoking is harmful keeps smoking anyway. In ordinary usage, one might note the dissonance between a politician's promises and their record, or between a brand's image and its behavior. The word suggests tension that demands resolution, whether musically, psychologically, or socially, which makes it especially useful for analyzing contradiction in almost any domain.
nounA lack of harmony or agreement between things; in music, a combination of notes that sounds tense, clashing, or unresolved. More broadly, any inconsistency or conflict between beliefs, ideas, or facts.
- A clash of sounds; a combination of musical notes that sounds tense or unresolved.
- A lack of agreement or consistency between people's actions and their beliefs (as in 'cognitive dissonance').
- Any general incongruity or conflict between ideas, statements, or situations.
"The dissonance between the company's stated values and its actual practices eroded employees' trust."
"The composer used sharp dissonances to convey the character's inner turmoil."
"There was clear dissonance between what the report claimed and the data it cited."
Usually treated as uncountable in abstract senses ('the dissonance between X and Y'); the plural appears mainly in music to refer to individual dissonant chords or passages.
"The quartet's late movement is filled with harsh dissonances that never fully resolve."
The phrase 'cognitive dissonance' was coined by a psychologist in 1957 — and it may be the most-used Latin-derived term on the internet today.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of dissonance
Dissonance derives from the Latin 'dissonantia,' meaning disagreement in sound, formed from 'dissinare' — to sound harshly or disagree in sound — itself built from the prefix 'dis-' (apart) plus 'sonare' (to sound). It entered English via Old French in the late medieval period, with its musical sense well established by the fifteenth century. It shares this Latin root 'sonare' with words such as sonorous, sonic, resonance, and consonance.
Related word forms
How dissonance is actually used
Dissonance is a formal or academic word, most common in music criticism, psychology, and analytical writing about social or intellectual contradictions. It carries a neutral-to-negative connotation: it names tension or conflict without necessarily implying blame.
Easily confused with dissonance
Consonance means harmony or agreement — the opposite of dissonance, which denotes clashing or discord.
Dissidence refers to open disagreement with or opposition to an authority, whereas dissonance refers to a lack of harmony or internal inconsistency.