Dictionary

cacophonous en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• /kəˈkɑfənəs/ (General-American)
• (US) audio
• /kəˈkɒfənəs/ (UK)

Etymology

Adapted borrowing of Ancient Greek κακόφωνος (kakóphōnos) + -ous, from κακός (kakós, “bad”) + -φωνος (-phōnos, “sounding”). By surface analysis, caco- + -phonous.

Meanings

1. Containing, consisting of, or producing harsh, unpleasant or discordant sounds.
   • […] and the cacophonous clatter of pots and pans accompanied the vociferous complaints of the ship's cook. 2011, Fern Michaels, To Taste the Wine, Kensington Books, published 2011, →ISBN, page 153:
   • The good thing about this job is that it gives me time and space to contemplate the future at my leisure, whilst the city sleeps, free from the cacophonous curiosity of the hoi polloi. 1993, Mike Leigh, Naked, spoken by Brian (Peter Wight):
   • The first time I saw the NYC quartet [Sonic Youth] was in 1983 for their Confusion Is Sex album, when they filled The Venue in Victoria, London with a cacophonous maelstrom of mangled sounds that still reverberates, more than two decades on. 2006, Everett True, Nirvana: The Biography, Da Capo Press, published 2007, →ISBN, page 58:
   • […] Huple had rescued them just in time by seizing the controls back from Dobbs and leveling the ship out almost as suddenly right back in the middle of the buffeting layer of cacophonous flak from which they had escaped successfully only a moment before. 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Texan”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 46:
   • A colony of pelicans can be cacophonous. 2012, Michael D. Breed & Janice Moore, Animal Behavior, Academic Press (2012), page 199 (image caption)

Forms

Antonyms

euphonious · euphonious · musical · harmonious

Deriveds

cacophonousness

Hypernyms

unpleasant · audible

Hyponyms

nasal · sibilant · raspy · guttural · strident · grating · hoarse · stridulous · croaky · throaty · drony

Relateds

harsh · jarring · cacophonously · cacophony · cacophonic

Synonyms

immelodious · honeyed · horrisonant · unmusical · tuneless · unlistenable · unmelodic · absonant · unmusical · nonsonorous · dissonant · cacophonic · scabrous · unsonorous · horrisonous · inharmonious · cacophonious · unmellifluous · cacophonical · rough · untunable · inharmonious · cacophonous · unharmonious · discordant · raucous · insonorous · disharmonious · noneuphonious · unmelodious · uneuphonious · unmelodic

Translations (19)

nn kakofonisk (containing or consisting of unpleasant sounds) · ru какофони́ческий (containing or consisting of unpleasant sounds) · ca cacofònic (containing or consisting of unpleasant sounds) · de kakophonisch (containing or consisting of unpleasant sounds) · es cacofónico (containing or consisting of unpleasant sounds) · it cacofonico (containing or consisting of unpleasant sounds) · es cacófono (containing or consisting of unpleasant sounds) · nb kakofonisk (containing or consisting of unpleasant sounds) · ru неблагозву́чный (containing or consisting of unpleasant sounds) · tr ahenksiz (containing or consisting of unpleasant sounds) · fi kakofoninen (containing or consisting of unpleasant sounds) · de kakophon (containing or consisting of unpleasant sounds) · tr kakofonik (containing or consisting of unpleasant sounds) · el κακόφωνος (containing or consisting of unpleasant sounds) · ru нестро́йный (containing or consisting of unpleasant sounds) · fr cacophonique (containing or consisting of unpleasant sounds) · sv kakofonisk (containing or consisting of unpleasant sounds) · pt cacofônico (containing or consisting of unpleasant sounds) · da kakofonisk (containing or consisting of unpleasant sounds)