coherence

What it means

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

   His arguments lacked coherence.

   2 more examples

   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.”

   1898, Henry James, chapter II, in The Turn of the Screw

   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.

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

2. countableuncountableThe quality of forming a unified whole.

   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.

   1919, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter XLIII, in The Moon and Sixpence, [New York, N.Y.]: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers […], →OCLC

3. countableuncountableA logical arrangement of parts, as in writing.

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

   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 sentence

His arguments lacked coherence.

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Indo-European*ḱe?
2. Proto-Indo-European*ḱóm
3. Proto-Italic*kom
4. Proto-Italic*kom-
5. Latincon-
6. Latinhaereō
7. Latincohaereō
8. Latincohaerēns
9. Latincohaerentia
10. Middle Frenchcoherence
11. Englishcoherence

From Middle French coherence, from Latin cohaerentia. By surface analysis, cohere + -ence.