consonant

consonant adj Consonant, consistent, compatible, congruous, congenial, sympathetic are comparable when they mean being in agreement one with another or agreeable one to the other.

Consonant implies agreement with a concurrent circumstance or situation, or conformity to an accepted standard, or harmony between two things that must come into contact or comparison with each other; the term suggests absence of discord

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Fijians possessed a physical endurance consonant with their great stature— Heiser

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it is . . . more consonant with the Puritan temper to abolish a practice than to elevate it and clear away abuses— Quiller-Couch

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to pursue callings more consonant with Buddha's teaching— Binyon

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nature has no ends consonant with ... the desires of man which would make it possible for him to accord himself to her— Krutch

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Consistent suggests such agreement or harmony between things or between the details of the same thing as implies the absence or avoidance of contradiction

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that their letters should be as kind as was consistent with proper maidenly pride— De Quincey

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did not think it to be con-sistent with his dignity to answer this sally— Trollope

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no one has yet imagined a consistent picture of what the electron and proton really are— Jeans

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Compatible implies a capacity for existing or coming together without disagreement, discord, or disharmony; the term does not necessarily suggest positive agreement or harmony, but it does imply the absence of such conflict between two or more things as would make their association or combination impossible or incongruous

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with all the eagerness compatible with . . . elegance, Sir Walter and his two ladies stepped forward to meet her— Austen

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to combine, in the highest measure in which they are compatible, the two elements of refinement and manliness— Froude

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many bad qualities are of course compatible with vitality —for example, those of a healthy tiger. And many of the best qualities are compatible with its absence— Russell

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Congruous implies more positive agreement or harmony than compatible does; ordinarily it implies the fitness, suitability, or appropriateness of one thing to another so that their association or combination, no matter how much they are in contrast, produces a pleasing or at least a not disagreeable impression

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congruous furnishings of a room

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not congruous to the nature of epic poetry— Blair

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thoughts congruous to the nature of their subject— Cowper

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The negative form incongruous is currently far more common than congruous.

Congenial is most often used of persons or things that are in such harmony with the taste of a person that they afford him pleasure or delight or satisfaction

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a congenial companion

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a pair of not very congenial passengers— Conrad

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the reticence and understatement of the method made it specially congenial [to the Chinese]— Binyon

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[Hobbes's] theory of government is congenial to that type of person who is conservative from prudence but revolutionary in his dreams— T. S. Eliot

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the ideal of a Greek democracy was vastly congenial to his aristocratic temperament— Partington

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Occasionally congenial is used of things in the sense of wholly and satisfyingly congruous

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all such introduced ideas are congenial to the subject— Alexander

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statement, overstatement, and understatement in letters given a congenial context, every one of them is right— Montague

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Sympathetic (see also TENDER), like congenial, usually suggests qualities in the person or thing so described that make him or it in agreement with another person's likings or tastes, but, in contrast with congenial, it suggests a more subtle appeal and often a less hearty acceptance

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every author who is sympathetic to them— Bradley

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Arnold does still hold us. ... To my generation ... he was a more sympathetic prose writer than Carlyle or Ruskin— T. S. Eliot

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a tête-â-tête with a man of similar tastes, who is just and yet sympathetic, critical yet appreciative— Benson

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Analogous words: conforming or conformable, harmonizing or harmonious, agreeing or agreeable, according or accordant (see corresponding verbs at AGREE): concurring or concurrent, coinciding or coincident (see corresponding verbs at AGREE)

Antonyms: inconsonant: dissonant (in music)

Contrasted words: discordant, discrepant, inconsistent, incompatible, incongruous (see INCONSONANT)