cohere

American  

[koh-heer] / koʊˈhɪər /

verb (used without object)

• coheres,
  present (3rd person singular)
• cohered,
  past participle,  past
• cohering
  present participle

1. to stick together; be united; hold fast, as parts of the same mass.

   The particles of wet flour cohered to form a paste.

2. Physics. (of two or more similar substances) to be united within a body by the action of molecular forces.

3. to be naturally or logically connected.

   Without sound reasoning no argument will cohere.

   Synonyms:

   follow

4. to agree; be congruous.

   Her account of the incident cohered with his.

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cohere British  

/ kəʊˈhɪə /

verb

1. to hold or stick firmly together

2. to be connected logically; be consistent

3. physics to be held together by the action of molecular forces

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Synonym Usage

See stick ².

Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

Participles

• cohering
  present
• cohered
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• cohere
  simple
• coheres
  simple
• have cohered
  perfect
• has cohered
  perfect
• am cohering
  progressive
• are cohering
  progressive
• is cohering
  progressive
• have been cohering
  perfect progressive
• has been cohering
  perfect progressive

Past

• cohered
  simple
• had cohered
  perfect
• was cohering
  progressive
• were cohering
  progressive
• had been cohering
  perfect progressive

Future

• will cohere
  simple
• will have cohered
  perfect
• will be cohering
  progressive
• will have been cohering
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of cohere

First recorded in 1590–1600; from Latin cohaerēre, equivalent to co- co- + haerēre “to stick, cling”

Explanation

When things cohere, they come together in a meaningful way. It wasn't until we won a game that our team finally cohered, and we actually felt like a unit. Co- means "together," and here is from the Latin haerēre, "to stick." Put them together and you have "to stick together." When people work together on a project, it's important that their ideas cohere, otherwise the work can seem disjointed and awkward. The beauty of the dance was in the timing: everyone was so in step that they seemed to cohere into one great mass of humanity. If the president's staff doesn't cohere into a cohesive unit, his policies will never come together either.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cohere coheres cohered cohering

The stories, likewise, are quasiparables, gesturing toward revelations that never quite cohere.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 14, 2025

As Britpop began to cohere into a recognizable genre and vision, Suede was canonized as its originators, only to be largely eclipsed as bands like Blur and Oasis came to define the movement.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 2, 2025

If the wishy-washy, parable-making and haywire everything else won’t cohere into true beauty or credible horror, then camp it is.

From New York Times ● Feb. 22, 2024

But the elements never quite cohere in “Freud’s Last Session.”

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 17, 2024

Boyle was desperate to show that polished marble plates would cease to cohere in a vacuum because Galileo had said as much.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton

Instead, long stretches of the book read like disparate essays on donnish life, fads and internecine disagreements, strung together in a sequence that never coheres.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 30, 2026

This coheres with Keynes’s conception of much contemporary economic life as a struggle between creditors and debtors.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026

The vassals’ argument coheres in an impassioned challenge from Hiromatsu, Toranaga’s oldest and closest friend, who begs him to stop “throwing away all we’ve fought for.”

From New York Times ● Apr. 9, 2024

For all its geographic separateness, the federation coheres at moments like this.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 29, 2023

The discussion of each theme coheres not just because it is localized in a string of consecutive paragraphs but because it refers to the theme using a set of transparently related terms.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

That idea — celebrating men for the good they’re capable of — felt transgressive enough today that it cohered the album for her.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 8, 2026

Through him, they met other colorful personalities of the “Cool School” art scene that had cohered in the 1960s around the Ferus Gallery and the scruffy beach neighborhood of Venice.

From New York Times ● Jan. 12, 2024

It cohered only by ignoring certain experiences, stories, and viewpoints.

From Salon ● Feb. 17, 2023

This is before modern, post-war feminism has really cohered into a visible movement.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 10, 2022

To produce a scroll, the stalks of the plant were slit open and laid flat in overlapping fashion; when two layers of these were pressed or pounded, the moisture-laden stalks cohered, producing a sheet.

From "Circumference" by Nicholas Nicastro

I’m running to represent a very diverse district, yes, and the opportunity that it presents is cohering a message that speaks to communities that feel left behind by the Democratic Party.

From Salon ● Jun. 2, 2026

The Lakers started the season 2-10, but they’re 12-6 since the trade deadline with a rapidly cohering roster and the looming return of the NBA’s career scoring leader.

From Washington Times ● Mar. 25, 2023

By rights, the whole enterprise should have collapsed, but the two stars, by some fluke, wound up getting along off-screen and cohering on-screen.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 24, 2023

She wanted to tell the story in reverse chronological order, but it wasn’t cohering.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2022

Resedaceæ, 75 Pistils several, their ovaries cohering in a ring around an axis.

From The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States Including the District East of the Mississippi and North of North Carolina and Tennessee by Asa Gray