consonance

[ kon-suh-nuhns ]
See synonyms for consonance on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. accord or agreement.

  2. correspondence of sounds; harmony of sounds.

  1. Music. a simultaneous combination of tones conventionally accepted as being in a state of repose.: Compare dissonance (def. 2).

  2. Prosody.

  3. Physics. the property of two sounds the frequencies of which have a ratio equal to a small whole number.

Origin of consonance

1
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin consonantia “concord,” from consonant- (stem of consonāns “sounding together”; see consonant) + -ia -y
  • Also con·so·nan·cy .

Other words for consonance

Opposites for consonance

Other words from consonance

  • non·con·so·nance, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

British Dictionary definitions for consonance

consonance

consonancy

/ (ˈkɒnsənəns) /


nounplural -nances or -nancies
  1. agreement, harmony, or accord

  2. prosody similarity between consonants, but not between vowels, as between the s and t sounds in sweet silent thought: Compare assonance (def. 1)

  1. music

    • an aesthetically pleasing sensation or perception associated with the interval of the octave, the perfect fourth and fifth, the major and minor third and sixth, and chords based on these intervals: Compare dissonance (def. 3)

    • an interval or chord producing this sensation

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012