cacophonous
/kəˈkɑfənəs/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.94 in modern English
20
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
2
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Containing, consisting of, or producing harsh, unpleasant or discordant sounds.
Example Sentences
- "[…] 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."
- "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."
- "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."
- "[…] and the cacophonous clatter of pots and pans accompanied the vociferous complaints of the ship's cook."
- "A colony of pelicans can be cacophonous."
Etymology
Adapted borrowing of Ancient Greek κακόφωνος (kakóphōnos) + -ous, from κακός (kakós, “bad”) + -φωνος (-phōnos, “sounding”). By surface analysis, caco- + -phonous.
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /kəˈkɑfənəs/
- British English: /kəˈkɒfənəs/
Inflected Forms
more cacophonous (comparative)
most cacophonous (superlative)