stridence

9.9

A loud, rough, high sound that hurts your ears

noun
/ˈstraɪdəns/

: estridencia

The stridence of her voice made it difficult to concentrate during the meeting.

Examples

Your shrill, shrieking stridence indicates hypocrisy.

Blog text (8)
It must be the approaching election, but I have been rather shocked at the stridence of Lemieux, DougJ, and others to dissent on party line support.

Blog text (27)
His stridence when arguing often turns people away rather than persuading them.
The stridence in the music caused many listeners to cover their ears.

Synonyms

stridency

vsstridence

1 8.5

A loud, harsh, high sound that hurts your ears

has the same meaning and describes the same tone

shrillness

vsstridence

1 5.6

A high, sharp sound from a voice or alarm that hurts your ears

is louder and more harsh rather than only high pitched

raucousness

vsstridence

1 7.5

Loud, rough, and noisy behavior that disturbs others

emphasizes pitch and tonal harshness rather than boisterous noise

roughness

vsstridence

1 3.9

A harsh quality in a voice or behavior that feels severe

is specifically about loud, high, harsh tone rather than general severity

Antonyms

softness

1 1.6

A quiet, gentle sound, like a whisper or soft music

mellowness

4.5

A smooth, rich feeling that makes music or food pleasant

How Harsh

harshness

2 3.5

stridence

9.9

shrillness

1 5.6

loudness

Specialized

4 1.8

quietness

7 1.0

Surface Forms

stridence singular

stridences plural

Morphology

stridence = strident (transparent) = strident + ence

Derived by nominalizing the adjective 'strident' with the productive suffix '-ence', yielding 'the state or quality of being strident' (minor spelling change from 'strident' to 'stridence').

Etymology

Stridence comes from the Latin verb stridere, which meant 'to make a harsh sound'. It shares the same root as the adjective strident, so imagine a high, sharp noise like a siren or screech — that is why stridence means a loud, harsh tone.