English

Alternative forms

• cohærent (archaic)

Adjective

coherent ‎(comparative more coherent, superlative most coherent)

1. Unified; sticking together; making up a whole.
   • 1997, Bernard J. Baars, "Psychology in a World of Sentient, Self-Knowing Beings: A Modest Utopian Fantasy", in Mind and Brain Sciences in the 21st Century (ed. Robert L. Solso), MIT Press (1999), ISBN 9780262193856, 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 (2005), ISBN 9781905119028, 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 (2011), ISBN 9780984277834, page 124:

     She intimidated me so much that I could hardly get out a coherent sentence in her presence.

2. Orderly, logical and consistent.
   • 2007, Kenneth R. Hammond, Beyond Rationality: The Search for Wisdom in a Troubled Time, Oxford University Press (2007), ISBN 9780195311747, 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 (2009), ISBN 9780664233518, 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. (2009), ISBN 9780470742709, unnumbered page:

     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.

3. Aesthetically ordered.
4. Having a natural or due agreement of parts; harmonious: a coherent design.
5. (physics) Of waves having the same direction, wavelength and phase, as light in a laser.
6. (botany) Attaching or pressing against an organ of the same nature.
7. (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

Related terms

• adherent
• coherence
• cohere
• cohesive
• inherent

Translations

Catalan

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ent

Adjective

coherent m, f ‎(masculine and feminine plural coherents)

1. coherent

Latin

Verb

cohērent

1. third-person plural present active indicative of cohēreō