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)

1. 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.

2. 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:

     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^[1], 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.

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, sheaf theory, of a sheaf) Belonging to a specific class of sheaves having particularly manageable properties closely linked to the geometrical properties of the underlying space. See Coherent sheaf on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
8. (topology, of a topology ${\mathcal {T}}$ on a set $T$ with respect to a family $\{C_{a}\}$ of subsets of $T$) In a technical sense, determined by the (topology of) the subsets. Formally, Such that ${\mathcal {T}}$ is the finest topology on $T$ for which the inclusion maps $\iota _{a}:C_{a}\to T$ are continuous, where each $C_{a}$ is considered with its subspace topology.
9. (algebra, of a module) Finitely generated and such that all finitely generated submodules are finitely presented.
10. (algebra, of a ring) Such that every finitely generated (left) ideal is finitely presented.

Antonyms

• incoherent

Derived terms

• coherent light

Related terms

• adherent
• coherence
• cohere
• cohesive
• inherent

Translations

sticking together

• Bulgarian: свързан (bg) (svǎrzan), съгласуван (bg) (sǎglasuvan)
• Catalan: coherent (ca)
• Czech: soudržný (cs)
• Dutch: samenhangend (nl), coherent (nl)
• Finnish: koherentti (fi), yhtenäinen (fi)
• German: kohärent (de), zusammenhängend (de)
• Greek: συνεκτικός (el) (synektikós), συναφής (el) (synafís), συνδεδεμένος (el) (syndedeménos)
• Hebrew: עקבי m (ikví), עקיב m (akív), קוהרנטי (he) m (koherénti)
• Hungarian: koherens (hu), összefüggő (hu)
• Manx: co-haagh
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: koherent

  Nynorsk: koherent

• Portuguese: coerente (pt)
• Russian: свя́зный (ru) (svjáznyj)
• Spanish: coherente (es)
• Ukrainian: зв'я́зний (zvʺjáznyj)

orderly, logical and consistent

• Bulgarian: ясен (bg) (jasen), последователен (bg) (posledovatelen)
• Catalan: coherent (ca)
• Czech: souvislý (cs), ucelený (cs)
• Danish: sammenhængende
• Dutch: samenhangend (nl), coherent (nl)
• Esperanto: kohera
• Finnish: koherentti (fi), johdonmukainen (fi)
• French: cohérent (fr)
• Galician: coherente
• German: kohärent (de), schlüssig (de), widerspruchsfrei (de), folgerichtig (de)
• Greek: συνεκτικός (el) (synektikós)
• Hungarian: egységes (hu), koherens (hu)
• Italian: coerente (it)
• Latin: contextus
• Maltese: koerenti
• Manx: resoonagh, colhiantynagh
• Occitan: coerent (oc)
• Persian: منطقی (fa) (manteqi)
• Polish: koherentny (pl)
• Portuguese: coerente (pt)
• Russian: свя́зный (ru) (svjáznyj), после́довательный (ru) (poslédovatelʹnyj)
• Scottish Gaelic: pongail
• Spanish: coherente (es)

aesthetically ordered

• Finnish: sopusointuinen (fi)
• German: stimmig
• Persian: مرتب (fa) (morattab)

of waves having the same direction, wavelength and phase

• Bulgarian: кохерентен (bg) (koherenten)
• Catalan: coherent (ca)
• Czech: koherentní (cs)
• Esperanto: kohera
• Finnish: koherentti (fi), samanvaiheinen
• French: cohérent (fr)
• German: kohärent (de)
• Greek: σύμφωνος (el) (sýmfonos)
• Malay: koheren
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: koherent

  Nynorsk: koherent

• Polish: koherentny (pl)
• Portuguese: coerente (pt)
• Russian: когере́нтный (ru) (kogeréntnyj)
• Spanish: coherente (es)

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

• Swedish: ^{(please verify)} sammanhängande (sv)

Catalan

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin cohaerentem.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ent

Adjective

coherent m or f (masculine and feminine plural coherents)

1. 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, 2024
• “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

1. 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)

1. 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