coherence
Americannoun
-
logical interconnection; overall sense or understandability.
-
congruity; consistency.
- Synonyms:
- rationality, agreement, harmony, correspondence
-
Physics, Optics. (of waves) the state of being coherent.
-
Linguistics. the property of unity in a written text or a segment of spoken discourse that stems from the links among its underlying ideas and from the logical organization and development of its thematic content.
noun
-
logical or natural connection or consistency
-
another word for cohesion
-
A property holding for two or more waves or fields when each individual wave or field is in phase with every other one. Lasers, for example, emit almost perfectly coherent light; all the photons emitted by a laser have the same frequency and are in phase. Since quantum states can be described by a wave equation, coherence can hold for quantum states in general, though only among bosons. Coherence is generally possible in physical systems that may undergo superposition. Maintaining coherence of light is important in fiber optic communications.
-
See also Bose-Einstein condensate
Other Word Forms
- noncoherence noun
- noncoherency noun
Etymology
Origin of coherence
First recorded in 1570–80; coher(ent) + -ence
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
As if the ugliness of the 120 minutes wasn't enough - the grisly battle, the hair-on-fire panic, the abysmal lack of anything resembling coherence or even competence - there was the disgrace of the post-match.
From BBC • Mar. 8, 2026
"It's a confused mix of ambition and narcissism, unleavened by any effort at intellectual coherence," said Bruce Jones, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
From Barron's • Feb. 19, 2026
Bowe restores coherence by allowing federal prisoners to return to court when later developments reveal that earlier denials rested on conclusions the Supreme Court has since rejected.
From Slate • Jan. 10, 2026
“Social media already trained users to rely on fluency, coherence and social endorsement as proxies for credibility,” says Quattrociocchi.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 2, 2026
It was time to put all of the pieces together, make coherence where before there had been none.
From "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
