confluence
Americannoun
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confluences
plural
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a flowing together of two or more streams, rivers, or the like.
the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.
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their place of junction.
St. Louis is at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers.
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a body of water formed by the flowing together of two or more streams, rivers, or the like.
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a coming together of people or things; concourse.
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a crowd or throng; assemblage.
noun
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a merging or flowing together, esp of rivers
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a gathering together, esp of people
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A flowing together of two or more streams or two or more glaciers.
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The point of juncture of such streams or glaciers.
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The combined stream or glacier formed by this juncture.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of confluence
First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English, from Middle French, from Late Latin confluentia, from Latin confluent-, stem of confluēns “flowing together” ( see confluent) + -ia -ia
Explanation
Confluence means a flowing together. In a literal sense, it's about rivers. But it's more often used to talk about the coming together of factors or ideas, or of cultures in a diverse city. Con- means "with," and -fluence sounds like "flow." When things come together like rivers do, flowing from entirely different places, you call that a confluence. If the senior class needs to raise money for a class trip, and the drama club is looking for someone to do concessions during intermission at the school play, that's a confluence of factors.
Vocabulary lists containing confluence
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com-, con-
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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:
Experts point to a confluence of factors that contribute to making buying and renting homes so expensive.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 26, 2026
The bond selloff, analysts said, reflects a confluence of forces: inflation fears stoked by rising energy prices, growing government deficits and the artificial intelligence industry’s voracious appetite for debt.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026
But more recently, a confluence of factors has made New York's coast less of a highway and more of a stomping ground.
From Barron's ● Aug. 18, 2026
“I felt this extraordinary confluence of my passions.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
Pythagoras taught that God is a number; Xenophanes that it is a sphere, passionless and consubstantial with all things; Parmenides that it is but the confluence of earth and fire.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
For Boggs, Baldwin’s nonfiction informed his fiction; there are “continuities and confluences between and across his work in both genres.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2025
My son is a private citizen, but the unusual and violent reaction to his autistic spelling shows similar confluences of eager internet sleuths ready to treat a seven-second clip as a Zapruder film.
From Salon ● Aug. 28, 2024
Harel's focus on the confluences of Darwin's life rather than its conflicts offers a refreshing take on his legacy.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 15, 2022
The book revels in the confluences, ironies, overlaps and buried stories of the Jewish South.
From New York Times ● Aug. 2, 2022
Indeed, the magnificence of some of them who are detached for duty at certain "great confluences of human existence" is such that you see strangers standing and gaping at the giants in sheer amazement.
From Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 11, No. 22, January, 1873 by Various
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.
