Art & MusicGreek → English
Cacophony
/kəˈkɒfəni/noun
A harsh clashing mixture of sounds.
The Greek roots
κακός
kakós
bad, ugly
φωνή
phōnḗ
voice, sound
Literally: “bad sound”
The story of the word
The Greeks had κακοφωνία and used it much as we do, of ugly sound in speech and in music. κακός is the ordinary word for bad, and it hides inside cachexia, the wasting condition literally named bad-condition. English took the word in the 1650s, when critics wanted a technical charge to bring against a clumsy line of verse.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 1650s
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
cachexiacacographyeuphonysymphony
In a sentence
Twenty children and one recorder each produced a cacophony that emptied the hall.