the.com/cacophony
The sound of everyone being right at the same volume at the same time.
means A harsh, jarring mixture of loud sounds clashing together with no pleasing order.
from Built in the 1600s from Greek kakophōnia — kakos, 'bad,' fused with phōnē, 'sound' or 'voice.' That same kakos root sours a whole family of English words like 'cacophemism' and 'cacography,' always marking something gone unpleasantly wrong. Its opposite, euphony, uses eu, 'good,' showing the Greeks built a whole vocabulary around judging noise by its manners.
- origin
- Greek for bad sound, kakos plus phone
- opposite
- euphony, same roots, nicer manners
- musical use
- 20th century composers wrote cacophony on purpose
- everyday example
- a toddler, a blender, and a smoke alarm