incoherence
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See also: incohérence
English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From in- + coherence, formed on model of Italian incoerenza.[1]
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
incoherence (countable and uncountable, plural incoherences)
- (uncountable) The quality of being incoherent.
- The quality of not making logical sense or of not being logically connected.
- 1599, Thomas Bilson, The Effect of Certaine Sermons Touching the Full Redemption of Mankind by the Death and Bloud of Christ Jesus[1], London: Walter Burre, page 145:
- HE DESCENDED, signifieth a voluntarie motion, where as the bodie dead hath neither WILL nor MOTION. […] Though therefore this exposition cannot be charged with falsitie, for Christ was trulie buried; yet may it not bee endured by reason of […] the improprietie and incoherence of the worde, that a deade corps should descend […]
- 1680, Henry Care, The History of the Damnable Popish Plot, London: B.R. et al., Chapter 23, Section 2, p. 327,[2]
- […] the said Lane is prevailed with […] to prefer an Indictment against Dr. Oates, for attempting to commit upon him the horrid and detestable sin of Sodomy; but the Grand Jury, by reason of the incoherence and slightness of his Evidence, did not think fit to finde it, but returned an Ignoramus.
- 1872, George Eliot, chapter 70, in Middlemarch[3]:
- Bulstrode went away now without anxiety as to what Raffles might say in his raving, which had taken on a muttering incoherence not likely to create any dangerous belief.
- 1905, Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth[4], Book 2, Chapter 10:
- Lily’s head was so heavy with the weight of a sleepless night that the chatter of her companions had the incoherence of a dream.
- 2002, Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex[5], New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Book 2, p. 99:
- My grandfather, accustomed to the multifarious conjugations of ancient Greek verbs, had found English, for all its incoherence, a relatively simple tongue to master.
- (obsolete) The quality of not holding together physically.
- 1669, Robert Boyle, “The History of Fluidity and Firmness,” Section 16, in Certain Physiological Essays and Other Tracts, London: Henry Herringman, p. 182,[6]
- […] if it [Salt-Petre] be beaten into an impalpable powder, this powder, when it is pour’d out, will emulate a Liquor, by reason that the smallness and incoherence of the parts do both make them easie to be put into motion […]
- 1669, Robert Boyle, “The History of Fluidity and Firmness,” Section 16, in Certain Physiological Essays and Other Tracts, London: Henry Herringman, p. 182,[6]
- The quality of not making logical sense or of not being logically connected.
- (countable) Something incoherent; something that does not make logical sense or is not logically connected.
- 1689 December (indicated as 1690), [John Locke], chapter 3, in Two Treatises of Government: […], London: […] Awnsham Churchill, […], →OCLC, book I, page 26:
- […] Incoherences in Matter and Suppositions, without Proofs put handsomly together in good Words and a plausible Stile, are apt to pass for strong Reason and good Sense, till they come to be look’d into with Attention.
- 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Chapter 28”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
- This was strangely heightened at times by the ragged Elijah’s diabolical incoherences uninvitedly recurring to me, with a subtle energy I could not have before conceived of.
- (psychiatry) Thinking or speech that is so disorganized that it is essentially inapprehensible to others.
Synonyms[edit]
- (quality of not making logical sense): unintelligibility
Antonyms[edit]
Translations[edit]
quality of being incoherent
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something incoherent
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psychiatric term
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See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “incoherence”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.