dissonance

Etymology

From Latin dissonantia via Middle French.

noun

1. A harsh, discordant combination of sounds.
2. (music) Conflicting notes that are not overtones of the note or chord sounding.
3. A state of disagreement or conflict.
4. (countable) An instance of disharmony or disjunction; a clash.
   In this polyphony of images in the unconscious which is beyond and outside historical time, there are complex harmonies but no dissonances: the images do not clash, but that, of course, is an aesthetic judgment and not a scientific one. 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 106