What's the difference between cacophony and mellifluous?

Cacophony


Definition:

  • (n.) An uncouth or disagreable sound of words, owing to the concurrence of harsh letters or syllables.
  • (n.) A combination of discordant sounds.
  • (n.) An unhealthy state of the voice.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Instead, we are treated to a cacophony of people trying to talk over each other.
  • (2) Karagandy will kick off, to a cacophony of boos from the home crowd, who are doing their best to stir that bad blood.
  • (3) The politics of football have long been accompanied by a background hum of corruption claims, but in recent times it has become a cacophony.
  • (4) It is a plausible claim, judging by the cacophony of trumpets, cymbals, drums and violins erupting from classrooms, corridors and the courtyard: hundreds of children aged six to 19, some in trainers, others in flip-flops, individually and collectively making music.
  • (5) Nelson said: "Against the cacophony of the 24-hour news era, there has never been a greater need for what the Spectator offers: wit, style, mischief, elegance of thought and independence of opinion.
  • (6) With the eight lanes of France’s most famous avenue cleared of all traffic on Paris’s first car-free day , the usual cacophony of car-revving and thundering motorbike engines had given way to the squeak of bicycle wheels, the clatter of skateboards, the laughter of children on rollerblades and even the gentle rustling of wind in the trees.
  • (7) But there is one part of the city, located along the creek and the traditional district of Bastakiya, where one can hear the sound of motorboats, called abras , transporting people from one side to the other, and the sound of pigeons, the lapping of waves, and the cacophony of various languages.
  • (8) Their cacophony has drowned out rational discourse.
  • (9) Christian Radnedge , a Spurs-supporting journalist who was in the Smoking Dog, told the BBC that it had been "full to the rafters" when there was "a huge cacophony of noise and the sound of glass being smashed".
  • (10) Instead, listeners’ ears are assaulted by a cacophony of industrial noise – recordings of ambient sounds from factories.
  • (11) As budgets continue to be squeezed, all councils need to think long and hard about where to prioritise their resources amid a cacophony of bids and pleas from different interest groups and residents.
  • (12) Amid a cacophony of phones, political interns were struggling to keep up with the calls and emails from angry people across the US and the world claiming Hollywood-backed legislation was about to break the internet and end its open culture forever.
  • (13) Their faces stared up from the dusty stretch of tarmac outside New Cairo's police academy, a silent roll call of butchery laid out like a human carpet amid a cacophony of chants, sirens and camera clicks in the morning sun.
  • (14) Right now I’m doing a daily commute of three hours [between Manchester and Morecambe] because I want to see my children and hear their nonsense in the morning and the cacophony of noise when I come in, about school dinner, about why I haven’t sewn someone’s trousers.” Campaigning full time became significantly easier recently when she was one of a small number of Labour candidates to receive £10,000 from the former Lib Dem peer Lord Oakeshott – money she could spend on petrol and childcare.
  • (15) They broke down all kinds of barriers - between pop and performance art, male and female, lyricism and cacophony.
  • (16) It is what some people would call a crisis of political representation, highlighted by Ukip's 28% of the poll and second placing, and the cacophony of noise in response to its success.
  • (17) Salinger was not yet 30, but the local acclaim of New York critics was translating into a buzz around his name that would soon explode into a cacophony.
  • (18) To cut through and persuade, he has to be prepared to take a risk and perhaps even find himself on the losing side of an argument, because there, in a bit of adversity, Shorten might actually find some genuine conviction that rings true, resonates and carries through the cacophony of the news cycle.
  • (19) Every now and then a columnist manages to distil a great cacophony of opinion into one simple sentence – and on Wednesday the Mail's Sarah Vine did just that.
  • (20) Lowering the window, I hear a cacophony of voices attempting to sell me a new property: “We offer a two-bedroom flat for only 22 lakh rupees [£21,500], ma’am!” “We have better amenities and a brilliant location to boot, ma’am!” “Ma’am, our company has been building flats for more than 20 years and has a brilliant reputation!” The scene is reminiscent of vegetable vendors hawking in crowded market places throughout India .

Mellifluous


Definition:

  • (a.) Flowing as with honey; smooth; flowing sweetly or smoothly; as, a mellifluous voice.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) "I wish he were alive so that I could hear his mellifluous voice at the other end of the phone offering me congratulations in his courtly way."
  • (2) A blackbird is broadcasting its mellifluous song, a squirrel runs up a nearby tree and surprisingly, given that we are in central London, we can both hear a woodpecker knocking.
  • (3) Watson answered in a mellifluous computerised voice – think Stephen Hawking with extra zing – and in a neat visual trick its screen avatar changed colour depending on how sure it was about each answer.
  • (4) Gassman had started out, quite promisingly, as a sportsman in his hometown of Genoa, but quickly decided to put his athletic prowess, good looks and prodigiously mellifluous speaking voice to work in the theatre.
  • (5) He goes after its baffling, mellifluous names – Smintheus, Agyieus, Platanistius, Theoxenius – his pencil languidly scratches, in a whimsical mock-invocation of Apollo from 1975.
  • (6) On Renaissance, you'll find politics, war parables, mellifluous metaphors, a keen sense of humour and a brilliant backdrop of Tribe-ish beats by himself and the deceased J Dilla.
  • (7) It's momentarily confusing since Rob Brydon shares the same mellifluous Welsh sing-song as his most famous character, Uncle Bryn from Gavin and Stacey – a man with such a joyous enthusiasm for life that even reciting a shopping list he can sound like he's just discovered the secret of eternal life.
  • (8) Speaking from her Paris flat, 54 years on, Riva's voice is still as mellifluous and as gently mesmerising.
  • (9) They had no beer licence, but I got a cup of coffee and the owner told me in rich, mellifluous Irish how the place was normally teeming with Gaeilgeoirí (Irish speakers) but because it was a sunny day no one wanted to be skulking underground and so I was the only customer.
  • (10) The quartet then plays a private concert: a mellifluous account of the finale from Dvorák's American quartet, to which one boy dances as though to a pop song and another plays air violin.
  • (11) If anything, in fact, he's better looking than he used to be; he has an actor's mellifluous voice, and often used to be likened to Bill Nighy, but with shorter hair and a radiant complexion he looks more like a distinguished architect, say, or a classical conductor.
  • (12) That breakthrough arrived when Xavi found the centre-half with a corner-kick in the 73rd minute as Spain showed they need not impress solely with mellifluous passing.
  • (13) Recently, I tried the experiment of getting Google’s pedestrian directions pumped into my earphones (the mellifluous recorded woman’s voice interrupting Queens of the Stone Age’s mellifluous racket just before each intersection) in order to get me from a London Overground station to an unfamiliar pub 15 minutes’ walk away.
  • (14) It appears everywhere on gastropub menus ("proper pork pie", "proper mash"), in one-up-from-McDonald's burger joints ("proper hamburgers", promises the London chain Byron), and in the mellifluously matey warbling of Jamie Oliver munching a Vietnamese banh minh in an East End market ("That is a proper, proper sandwich"), and his own dish names: "Proper Bloke's Sausage Fusilli", "Roast of Incredible Game Birds with Proper Polenta".
  • (15) His late father, Chaim, born in Belfast, was a general who was Israel’s president from 1983 to 1993; his uncle, Abba Eban, its famously mellifluous foreign minister.