coherent

adjective

co·​her·​ent kō-ˈhir-ənt 

-ˈher-

1

a

: logically or aesthetically ordered or integrated : consistent

coherent style

a coherent argument

… a national cuisine evolving out of all the bits and pieces … into a coherent … cuisine.

—Raymond Sokolov

b

: having clarity or intelligibility : understandable

a coherent speaker

a coherent passage

edited the article to make it more coherent

He was half asleep and not coherent on the phone.

2

: having the quality of holding together or cohering

especially : cohesive, coordinated

a coherent plan for action

a coherent team of professionals

… whether he and the President have effectively fashioned a coherent national strategy.

—Hedrick Smith

3

physics

a

: relating to or composed of waves having a constant difference in phase

coherent light

b

: producing coherent light

a coherent source

coherently adverb

The students struggled to express their ideas coherently.

Synonyms of coherent

• logical
• rational
• reasonable
• valid
• sensible
• good

Examples of coherent in a Sentence

… the diaries and the novels demonstrate how a novelist tweaks and grooms reality into something more structured and coherent than life as it is lived. —Penelope Lively, Atlantic, February 2001

He is without a political agenda as he is without a coherent moral sensibility. —Joyce Carol Oates, Entertainment Weekly, 27 July 1990

At times, without my insisting on it, my writings become coherent; the successive elements that occur to me are clearly related. —William Stafford, Writing the Australian Crawl, 1978

This time the song was old, a pattern of rhythmic monosyllables which had lost coherent meaning somewhere in time. —Tony Hillerman, The Blessing Way, 1970

He proposed the most coherent plan to improve the schools.

They are able to function as a coherent group.

Recent Examples on the Web

Sign up for our weekly newsletter Proof Positive How does a coherent structure emerge from many small random occurrences? — Manon Bischoff, Scientific American, 30 Sep. 2026

Characters, environments, performances and production choices need to remain coherent as the project evolves. — Partner Content, Variety, 30 Sep. 2026

Recovery, when it’s required, is faster and more coherent because all stakeholders are working from the same operational picture. — Abha Dogra, Forbes.com, 29 Sep. 2026

By entangling 30 logical qubits in a single, coherent quantum state, Infleqtion has validated the core architecture of its Sqale hardware and Superstaq software, on its roadmap to deliver 100 logical qubits by 2028. — Prabhat Ranjan Mishra, Interesting Engineering, 25 Sep. 2026

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from Middle French & Latin; Middle French coherent, borrowed from Latin cohaerent-, cohaerens "touching, adjacent, cohering," from present participle of cohaerēre "to cohere"

First Known Use

1557, in the meaning defined at sense 2a

Rhymes for coherent

• adherent
• inherent
• incoherent