Cacophony

🔊 kuh-KOF-uh-nee  ·  noun

Think a car alarm, a crying baby, a jackhammer, and someone's ringtone, all going off in the same five seconds. Cacophony is what you get when a bunch of harsh, clashing sounds pile up at once with zero harmony between them — the exact opposite of music, and the polar opposite of yesterday's word, mellifluous.

This word comes from the Greek word for "bad," paired with the same root that gives us "telephone" and "symphony." See it used in the wild, and the one thing people get wrong about it.