coherent
See also: cohérent
English
WOTD – 18 November 2012
Alternative forms
- cohærent (archaic)
Etymology
From Middle French coherent, from Latin cohaērēns, from co- + haereō. By surface analysis, cohere + -ent.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /kəʊˈhɪə.ɹənt/
Audio (UK) (file)
- (US) IPA(key): /koʊˈhɛɹ.ənt/, /koʊˈhɪɹ.ənt/
Audio (US) (file)
- (Canada) IPA(key): /koːˈhɪɹ.ənt/
- (General Australian) IPA(key): /kəʉˈhɪə.ɹənt/
Audio (AU) (file)
Adjective
coherent (comparative more coherent, superlative most coherent)
- Unified; sticking together; making up a whole.
- 1909, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, chapter IV, in Orthodoxy:
- These people professed that the universe was one coherent thing; but they were not fond of the universe.
- 1997, Bernard J. Baars, “Psychology in a World of Sentient, Self-Knowing Beings: A Modest Utopian Fantasy”, in Robert L. Solso, editor, Mind and Brain Sciences in the 21st Century, MIT Press, published 1999, →ISBN, page 7:
- A sentence like this one cannot be understood unless somehow we can store the underlined words for several seconds, while we wait for the rest of the sentence to arrive, with the information needed to complete a coherent thought.
- 2005, Tom Williamson, Sandlands: The Suffolk Coast and Heaths, Windgather, published 2005, →ISBN, page 15:
- Anglia, is part of a wider phenomenon of the seventh century - the development of recognisable, coherent kingdoms from the fragmented tribal society which emerged from the ruins of Roman Britain.
- 2011, Claire Klein Datnow, Behind the Walled Garden of Apartheid: Growing Up White in Segregated South Africa, Media Mint Publishing, published 2011, →ISBN, page 124:
- She intimidated me so much that I could hardly get out a coherent sentence in her presence.
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- Orderly, logical and consistent.
- 1904 December, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Second Stain”, in The Return of Sherlock Holmes, New York, N.Y.: McClure, Phillips & Co., published February 1905, OCLC 2093987:
- At present she is unable to give any coherent account of the past, and the doctors hold out no hopes of the reestablishment of her reason.
- 2007, Kenneth R. Hammond, Beyond Rationality: The Search for Wisdom in a Troubled Time, Oxford University Press, published 2007, →ISBN, page 108:
- Perhaps Khrushchev did have a coherent plan in mind at the time he placed the nuclear missiles in Cuba.
- 2009, John Polkinghorne; Nicholas Beale, Questions of Truth: Fifty-One Responses to Questions about God, Science, and Belief, Westminster John Knox Press, published 2009, →ISBN, page 23:
- It will dissolve at death with the decay of the body, but it is a perfectly coherent belief that the faithful God will not allow it to be lost but will preserve it in the divine memory.
- 2009, Carrie Winstanley, Writing a Dissertation For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., published 2009, →ISBN:
- Presenting a balanced and coherent argument is an important aspect of a nonempirical dissertation and you need to spend some time considering the most useful route through your argument.
- 2020 December 2, Christian Wolmar, “Wales offers us a glimpse of an integrated transport policy”, in Rail, page 56:
- The underlying problem with transport policy is that there no coherent strategy. Ministers have tended to encourage greater use of motor vehicles through both transport and (particularly) planning policies, while simultaneously warning of the terrible consequences of unfettered growth of road use.
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- Aesthetically ordered.
- Having a natural or due agreement of parts; harmonious: a coherent design.
- (physics) Of waves having the same direction, wavelength and phase, as light in a laser.
- (botany) Attaching or pressing against an organ of the same nature.
- (mathematics, of a sheaf) Belonging to a specific class of sheaves having particularly manageable properties closely linked to the geometrical properties of the underlying space.
Antonyms
- incoherent
Derived terms
- coherent light
Related terms
- adherent
- coherence
- cohere
- cohesive
- inherent
Translations
sticking together
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orderly, logical and consistent
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aesthetically ordered
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of waves having the same direction, wavelength and phase
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- 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
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Catalan
Etymology
From Latin cohaerēns.
Pronunciation
- Rhymes: -ent
Adjective
coherent (masculine and feminine plural coherents)
- coherent
- Antonym: incoherent
Derived terms
- coherentment
Related terms
- coherència
- incoherent
Further reading
- “coherent” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
- “coherent”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2023
- “coherent” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
- “coherent” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.
Latin
Verb
cohērent
- third-person plural present active indicative of cohēreō
Romanian
Adjective
coherent m or n (feminine singular coherentă, masculine plural coherenți, feminine and neuter plural coherente)
- Alternative form of coerent
Declension
Declension of coherent
| singular | plural | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| masculine | neuter | feminine | masculine | neuter | feminine | ||
| nominative/ accusative | indefinite | coherent | coherentă | coherenți | coherente | ||
| definite | coherentul | coherenta | coherenții | coherentele | |||
| genitive/ dative | indefinite | coherent | coherente | coherenți | coherente | ||
| definite | coherentului | coherentei | coherenților | coherentelor | |||