discordant
adjective
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Discord, a word more common in earlier centuries than today, means basically "conflict", so discordant often means "conflicting". The opinions of Supreme Court justices are frequently discordant; justices who disagree with the Court's decision usually write a dissenting opinion. Discordant is often used with a somewhat musical meaning, suggesting that a single wrong note or harmony has been heard in the middle of a performance—even though musical words such as chord actually come from a different Latin word, meaning "cord" or "string" (a reference to the strings of ancient instruments such as the lyre).
Examples of discordant in a Sentence
Clyde Wayne Crews Jr., Forbes.com, 2 Apr. 2025
You’re Cordially Invited might have been better off ditching the rom of it all entirely, but Stoller is good enough at this that even if the rest of his movie consists of two slightly discordant halves, both are pretty solid.
—Alison Willmore, Vulture, 31 Jan. 2025
The centennial of Baldwin’s birth, this past year, saw no shortage of hymns, modulating the key to minor and rendering the arrangements slightly discordant.
—Doreen St. Félix, The New Yorker, 28 Dec. 2024
That’s the disturbing question being debated this week in response to the discordant noises from Washington.
—Peter Bart, Deadline, 30 Jan. 2025
See All Example Sentences for discordant
Cite this Entry
“Discordant.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/discordant. Accessed 16 Apr. 2025.
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discordant
adjective
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