as in shrill
marked by or producing a harsh combination of sounds
the cacophonous chaos on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange
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Recent Examples of cacophonous
Fried and the cacophonous home crowd in his proverbial corner, were a lethal combination for the Yankees in the first six innings.
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Gabrielle Starr, Boston Herald, 1 Oct. 2025
Bowling at run-hungry batters on largely unforgiving pitches in vast, cacophonous stadiums with huge outfields in front of a partisan and at times baying crowd — plenty of English bowlers have found bowling in Australia akin to a Sisyphean task.
—James Wallace, New York Times, 22 Sep. 2025
Mistakes do abound on Getting Killed, from cacophonous guitar skronks to stumble-drunk hi-hat taps that completely throw off a song’s rhythm.
—Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone, 26 Aug. 2025
This year's trip to Thailand was an exercise in incivility and taboo-breaking, a cacophonous symphony of troubled souls colliding amid Mai Tais and monkeys.
—Kelly Lawler, USA Today, 12 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for cacophonous
Recent Examples of Synonyms for cacophonous
Adjective
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What's more, this door alarm features three sensitivity levels and emits a loud, shrill sound that will instantly scare an intruder away.—
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When Nosferatu showed his corpselike face, the Wonder Morton’s Vox Humana (human voice) and concert-flute pipes buzzed together in a shrill cluster.—
Adjective
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The duo moved around notes to create a sound that was dissonant, amplifying the disgusting effect.—
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But Roofman, which Cianfrance also co-wrote, was clearly intended to be lighter fare and instead ends up in this dissonant in-between space tonally.—
Adjective
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Simons also emphasized that December jobs data are among the noisiest of the year and should not be over-interpreted.—
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And then there is the noisy parade of vehicles passing nearby on their way to who knows what?—
Adjective
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Using a speaker outside the stall results in reverb and echoing as the music bounces around the bathroom walls, making the sound muddy and unpleasant.—
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Given the lack of gravity, even a runny nose can turn into an extremely unpleasant experience, forcing astronauts to resort to unusual measures just to drain mucus from their nasal passages.—
Cite this Entry
“Cacophonous.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/cacophonous. Accessed 13 Jan. 2026.
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