coherence
[koh-heer-uh ns, -her-]
- the act or state of cohering; cohesion.
- 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).
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Also co·her·en·cy.
Origin of coherence
Synonyms
See more synonyms for coherence on Thesaurus.com3. correspondence, harmony, agreement, rationality.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for coherence
Contemporary Examples
For now, the coherence and scale of Moral Mondays is a success ironically founded in shared defeat.
He was talking about places that give a neighborhood its stability and coherence, where we can see familiar faces and decompress.
Historical Examples
But you will say, what coherence has this remark with the matter in question?
Ebrietatis EncomiumBoniface Oinophilus
At about this point the conversation lost its coherence in Pop's ears.
In a Little TownRupert Hughes
There was no coherence in the noises he was making in his effort to speak words.
Joan of Arc of the North WoodsHolman Day
Consequently, they can no longer assume the coherence of language.
The Civilization of IlliteracyMihai Nadin
Why stifle his powers for the sake of a coherence which did not exist!
The PatricianJohn Galsworthy
coherence
coherency (kəʊˈhɪərənsɪ)
- logical or natural connection or consistency
- another word for cohesion (def. 1)
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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
n.
late 16c., from Middle French cohérence (16c.), from Latin cohaerentia, noun of state from cohaerentem (see coherent). Related: Coherency.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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.
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The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.