coherence

See also: cohérence

English

Alternative forms

• cohærence (archaic)

Etymology

From Middle French coherence, from Latin cohaerentia.

Morphologically cohere +‎ -ence.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kəʊˈhɪəɹ.ən(t)s/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /koʊˈhɪɹ.ən(t)s/
• Hyphenation: co‧her‧ence

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

coherence (countable and uncountable, plural coherences)

1. The quality of cohering, or being coherent; internal consistency.

   His arguments lacked coherence.

   • 1898, Henry James, chapter II, in The Turn of the Screw‎^[1]:

     Mrs. Grose listened with dumb emotion; she forbore to ask me what this meaning might be; so that, presently, to put the thing with some coherence and with the mere aid of her presence to my own mind, I went on: “That he’s an injury to the others.”

   • 1915, Virginia Woolf, chapter XXII, in The Voyage Out, London: Duckworth & Co., […], →OCLC:

     He would then put down his pencil and stare in front of him, and wonder in what respects the world was different—it had, perhaps, more solidity, more coherence, more importance, greater depth.

2. The quality of forming a unified whole.
   • 1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter XLIII, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC:

     When I come to his connection with Blanche Stroeve I am exasperated by the fragmentariness of the facts at my disposal. To give my story coherence I should describe the progress of their tragic union, but I know nothing of the three months during which they lived together.

3. A logical arrangement of parts, as in writing.
   • 2017, Di Zou, James Lambert, “Feedback methods for student voice in the digital age”, in British Journal of Educational Technology, volume 48, number 5, page 1088:

     In a lesson on coherence in academic writing, students engaged in the following discussion on the online platform TodaysMeet.

4. (physics, of waves) The property of having the same wavelength and phase.
5. (linguistics, translation studies) A semantic relationship between different parts of the same text.

   Coordinate term: cohesion

Antonyms

• incoherence

Derived terms

• anticoherence
• autocoherence
• bicoherence
• coherence time
• coherin
• multicoherence
• overcoherence
• quantum coherence
• recoherence
• supercoherence
• tricoherence
• unicoherence

Related terms

• cohesion

Translations

quality of cohering; of being coherent

• Bulgarian: съгласуваност (bg) f (sǎglasuvanost)
• Catalan: coherència (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 倫次 / 伦次 (leon⁴ ci³)

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Czech: soudržnost f
• Finnish: johdonmukaisuus (fi)
• French: cohérence (fr) f
• German: Kohärenz (de) f, Geschlossenheit (de) f
• Greek: συνοχή (el) f (synochí), συνάφεια (el) f (synáfeia)
• Italian: coerenza (it) f
• Latin: cohaerentia f
• Lithuanian: darna f
• Polish: koherencja (pl) f, kohezja f, spójność (pl) f
• Portuguese: coerência (pt) f
• Spanish: coherencia (es) f
• Turkish: insicam (tr),, (obsolescing), ^{(please verify)} yapışma (tr), tutarlılık (tr), tutarlık (tr), bağdaşım (tr)

logical arrangements of parts

• Bulgarian: свързване (bg) n (svǎrzvane)
• Catalan: coherència (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Finnish: kokonaisuus (fi), koherenssi (fi), yhtenäisyys (fi)
• German: Zusammenhang (de) m
• Greek: συνοχή (el) f (synochí), συνάφεια (el) f (synáfeia)
• Polish: koherencja (pl) f, kohezja f, spójność (pl) f
• Portuguese: coerência (pt) f
• Spanish: coherencia (es) f
• Turkish: âhenk, tutarlılık (tr), uyumluluk (tr)

having the same wavelength and phase

• Bulgarian: кохерентност (bg) f (koherentnost)
• Catalan: coherència (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Czech: koherence f
• Finnish: koherenssi (fi)
• German: Kohärenz (de) f
• Greek: συμφωνία (el) f (symfonía)
• Polish: koherencja (pl) f
• Portuguese: coerência (pt) f
• Turkish: koherent (tr)

semantic relationship

• Catalan: concordança f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 連貫性 / 连贯性 (zh) (liánguànxìng)

• Finnish: koherenssi (fi)
• Portuguese: coerência (pt) f
• Turkish: bağlaşıklık (tr)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: ^{(please verify)} 倫次 / 伦次 (zh) (lúncì),

• French: ^{(please verify)} cohérence (fr)

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2025) “coherence”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Middle French

Noun

coherence f (uncountable)

1. coherence; quality of being internally consistent

Descendants

• English: coherence
• French: cohérence