incoherency

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English

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Etymology

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From in- +‎ coherency[1] or incoherent +‎ -cy.[2]

Noun

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incoherency (usually uncountable, plural incoherencies)

  1. The quality of being incoherent; lack of coherence.
    • 1686, Robert Boyle, A Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Receiv’d Notion of Nature[2], London: John Taylor, Conclusion, page 409:
      [] Haste and Sickness made me rather venture on your good Nature, for the Pardon of a venial Fault, than put myself to the trouble of altering the Order of these Papers, and substituting new Transitions and Connections, in the room of those, with which I formerly made up the Chasms and Incoherency of the Tract, you now receive.
    • 1785, Sophia Lee, The Recess[3], London: T. Cadell, Volume 3, Part 6, p. 260:
      Pardon, madam, the haste and incoherency of scrawls penned at so trying a moment.
    • 1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC:
      “It can make no change. You do not understand my position,” returned the doctor, with a certain incoherency of manner.
      [4]
  2. That which is incoherent.
    • 1667, John Evelyn, “To the Reader”, in Publick Employment and an Active Life Prefer’d to Solitude[5], London: H. Herringman:
      [] that which would best of all justifie me, and the seeming incoherencies of some parts of my Discourse, would be the noble Authors Piece it self []
    • 1757, David Hume, “The Natural History of Religion,” section 11, in Four Dissertations, London: A. Millar, p. 70,[6]
      For besides the unavoidable incoherencies, which must be reconciled and adjusted; one may safely affirm, that all popular theology, especially the scholastic, has a kind of appetite for absurdity and contradiction.
    • 1887, William Dean Howells, chapter 1, in April Hopes[7], New York: Harper, page 3:
      [] he took into his large moist palm the dry little hand of his friend, while they both broke out into the incoherencies of people meeting after a long time.

Synonyms

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References

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  1. ^ incoherency, n.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required[1], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000, archived from the original on 2023-10-07.
  2. ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “incoherency (n.)”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.