17 November 2014

cacophony

[kuh-kof-uh-nee]

noun, plural cacophonies.
1. harsh discordance of sound; dissonance:
a cacophony of hoots, cackles, and wails.
2. a discordant and meaningless mixture of sounds:
the cacophony produced by city traffic at midday.
3. Music. frequent use of discords of a harshness and relationship difficult to understand.

Origin
Greek
1650-1660; < Neo-Latin cacophonia < Greek kakophōnía. See caco-, -phony

Related forms
cacophonic [kak-uh-fon-ik], adjective

Dictionary.com

Examples from the web for cacophony
– The resulting cacophony is exhausting for the user, who must concentrate to isolate relevant input.
– On such networks, conventional wiretaps will yield a cacophony of useless electronic noise.
– When I blog on politics, on the other hand, there’s a cacophony of voices.

Anagram

nacho copy
cyan pooch

Today’s aphorism

Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.

– Plato

On this day

17 November 1950 – 15 year-old, Tenzin Gyatso becomes the 14th Dalai Lama in Tibet, a position he holds to this day.

17 November 1973 – U.S. President Richard Nixon televises a speech in which he states, ‘I am not a crook’. This was in relation to allegations of his involvement in the Watergate Scandal, in which documents were stolen from the offices of the Democratic National Convention at the Watergate Hotel in Washington on 17 June 1972. Nixon was implicated in the break-in when recordings of conversations held in the Oval Office showed his involvement. Impeachment proceedings were commenced, however, Nixon resigned on 8 August 1974 and avoided being impeached, although he faced possible criminal proceedings. Vice-President Gerald Ford became President immediately following Nixon’s resignations, and on 8 September 1974, Ford pardoned Nixon of any wrong-doing.