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Etymology
Origin of adherence
Explanation
Adherence means "sticking to" or "being faithful to," such as your adherence to your diet even when chocolate cake is around, or students' adherence to school rules — they do not use cell phones or music players in class. The noun adherence is related to the verb adhere, meaning “to stick.” If something adheres, it sticks it to something, like a bumper stick that adheres to a car or a person who adheres to a plan, not changing it along the way. Adherence describes this willingness to stick or be faithful, like adherence to child labor laws that means young workers cannot work past a certain time on school nights.
Vocabulary lists containing adherence
This Week in Words: December 9 - 15, 2017
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Lyddie
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Herbert Hoover on "Rugged Individualism" (1928)
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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.
See Examples For:
As part of the settlement, Paramount agreed to the formation of an editorial oversight board that will monitor adherence to editorial independence from its owners and shareholders.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
The next thing I think you start seeing is the court becoming interested in, despite its professed adherence to textualism, reading these statutes with an eyebrow raised.
From Slate ● Sep. 22, 2026
By using AI to instantly verify policy adherence whenever possible, it became easier to retire the old bureaucracy, according to Bardeen.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026
Russia's Ambassador to Budapest, Evgeny Stanislavov, reacted bitterly to Anita Orbán's intention to continue "the necessary dialogue, based on mutual respect and adherence to the rules".
From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026
A strict adherence to form was the order of the night.
From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy
Some of these adherences resembled pouches with holes, pumping the sea, disgorging vapour, and refilling themselves with water.
From The Man Who Laughs by Victor Hugo
Whether the Stones and Pebles, that are wash'd by the Brooks, Springs, or other Waters, have any colour'd substance left upon them; and if they have, of what colour, weight, &c. these adherences are?
From Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 Giving some Accompt of the present Undertakings, Studies, and Labours of the Ingenious in many considerable parts of the World by Henry Oldenburg
The object has been to keep the old family, and the old adherences, and the old acres together.
From Cousin Henry by Anthony Trollope
First, man must independently investigate reality, for the disagreements and dissensions which afflict and affect humanity primarily proceed from imitations of ancestral beliefs and adherences to hereditary forms of worship.
From The Promulgation of Universal Peace by `Abdu'l-Bahá
Like the tree or vine just mention'd, it stands at last in a beauty, power and productiveness of its own, above all others, and of a sort and style uniting all criticisms, proofs and adherences.
From Complete Prose Works Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy by Walt Whitman
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.
