coherence

[ koh-heer-uhns, -her- ]

/ koʊˈhɪər əns, -ˈhɛr- /

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR coherence ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

logical interconnection; overall sense or understandability.

congruity; consistency.

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.Compare cohesion(def 4).

RELATED WORDS

Nearby words

Also co·her·en·cy.

Origin of coherence

First recorded in 1570–80; coher(ent) + -ence

SYNONYMS FOR coherence

3. correspondence, harmony, agreement, rationality.

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR coherence ON THESAURUS.COM

Related formsnon·co·her·ence, nounnon·co·her·en·cy, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for coherence

For now, the coherence and scale of Moral Mondays is a success ironically founded in shared defeat.
Progressive-palooza: On Obama, Occupy, and Moral Monday|Jedediah Purdy|July 5, 2014|DAILY BEAST
He was talking about places that give a neighborhood its stability and coherence, where we can see familiar faces and decompress.
The Fourth Place|Richard Florida|July 6, 2010|DAILY BEAST
And Hallet lost even the coherence of hysteria and simply shrieked.
Planet of Dread|Murray Leinster
There were long, poignant pauses between his sentences as he seemed to strive for coherence.
The Last Shot|Frederick Palmer

Let us set aside the poetical colours in the account of Herodotus in order to test its coherence.
The History of Antiquity|Max Duncker
This taste gave character to the technical standards, to which Pope, more than any other writer, gave system and coherence.
English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History|Henry Coppee
The construction is what the writer wished it to be, and his meaning is expressed with no failure in coherence.
Medieval English Literature|William Paton Ker

British Dictionary definitions for coherence

coherence

coherency (kəʊˈhɪərənsɪ)

/ (kəʊˈhɪərəns) /

noun

logical or natural connection or consistency

another word for cohesion (def. 1)

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for coherence

coherence

late 16c., from Middle French cohérence (16c.), from Latin cohaerentia, noun of state from cohaerentem (see coherent). Related: Coherency.

Science definitions for coherence

coherence

[ kō-hîr′əns, -hĕr′- ]

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.