cohere

English

Alternative forms

• cohære (rare)

Etymology

From the Latin cohaereō (“cohere, cling (closely) together, harmonise, be consistent (with), be in agreement with”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /kəʊˈhɪə/
• (US) IPA^(key): /koʊˈhɪɚ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)

Verb

cohere (third-person singular simple present coheres, present participle cohering, simple past and past participle cohered)

1. (intransitive) To stick together physically, by adhesion.

   Separate molecules will cohere because of electromagnetic force.

   • 2018 July 19, Zoe Williams, “Can ditching meat and dairy open up new taste sensations? My week as a foodie vegan”, in The Guardian‎:

     Nothing coheres the way you expect. Substances float around each other until you crush them all with a blender.

2. (intransitive, figurative) To be consistent as part of a group, or by common purpose.

   Members of the party would cohere in the message they were sending.

   • 1878 January–December, Thomas Hardy, The Return of the Native […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], published 1878, →OCLC:

     That dream of beautiful Paris was not likely to cohere into substance in the presence of this misfortune.

   • 2024 April 15, Charles Hugh Smith, Financial Forecast 2025-2032: Please Don't Be Naive‎:

     A system that degrades but coheres is a far better place to live than a system that completely collapses.

3. (transitive, figurative) To be consistent as part of a group, or by common purpose.
   • 2022 October 2, Nicholas Carl, Kitaneh Fitzpatrick, Zachary Coles, and Frederick W. Kagan, “Iran Crisis Update, October 2”, in Iran Project‎, Institute for the Study of War:

     This division suggests that Khamenei is not playing his usual role of cohering the regime during a crisis.

Derived terms

• coherer
• decohere
• recohere
• uncohered

Related terms

• adhere
• coherence
• coherent
• cohesion
• cohesive
• inhere

Translations

to stick together

Bulgarian: прилепвам (bg) (prilepvam) Catalan: cohesionar (ca) Dutch: samenklitten (nl) French: s'attirer (fr), attirer (fr), se cohérer (fr) German: aneinanderhaften, aneinanderkleben, binden (de), ein Ganzes bilden, eine Einheit bilden Latin: cohaereō Spanish: cohesionar (es) Turkish: birbirine yapışmak, birbirini tutmak

to be consistent as part of a group

Bulgarian: съгласувам се (sǎglasuvam se) German: in sich geschlossen sein, zusammenhängen (de) Spanish: ser coherente Turkish: bağlantılı olmak, tutarlı olmak, uyuşmak (tr)

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

Japanese: (please verify) 密着する (micchaku suru): To stick together physically (please verify) 凝集する (gyoushū suru): For molecules, to stick together physically (please verify) 結集する (kesshū suru): To stick together figuratively by common purpose (please verify) 首尾一貫している (shubi ikkan shite iru), (please verify) 矛盾していない (mujun shite inai): To be consistent as part of a group

Anagrams

• cheero, choree, echoer, re-echo, reecho

Latin

Verb

cohērē

1. second-person singular present active imperative of cohēreō