conflux

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin cōnflūxus.

Noun

conflux (plural confluxes)

1. A merger of rivers, or the place where rivers merge.
   • 1722, Daniel Defoe, A Tour Through the Eastern Counties of England:

     It stands on the conflux of two rivers—the Chelmer, whence the town is called, and the Cann.

2. A convergence or moving gathering of forces, people, or things.
   • 1671, John Milton, “The Fourth Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC, page 81, lines 61–66:

     Thence to the gates caſt round thine eye, and ſee / What conflux iſſuing forth, or entring in: / Pretors, Proconſuls to thir Provinces / Haſting or on return, in robes of State; / Lictors and rods the enſigns of thir power; / Legions and Cohorts, turmes of horſe and wings: […]

   • 1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter LXIV, in Middlemarch […], volume IV, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book VII, page 42:

     There was a conflux of emotions and thoughts in him that would not let him either give thorough way to his anger or persevere with simple rigidity of resolve.

   • 1903, Stanley J. Weyman, chapter 24, in The Long Night:

     So great was the conflux of torches, the flash and gleam of weapons, and the babel of sounds that it wrought on the mind the impression of a fire blazing up in the night.

Synonyms

• confluence