in·co·her·ence

(ĭn′kō-hîr′əns)

1. The condition or quality of being incoherent.

2. Something incoherent.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

in•co•her•ence

(ˌɪn koʊˈhɪər əns, -ˈhɛr-)

n.

1. the quality or state of being incoherent.

2. something that is incoherent.

[1605–15]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun	1.	incoherence - lack of cohesion or clarity or organization incoherency disconnectedness, disconnection, disjunction, disjuncture - state of being disconnected disjointedness - lacking order or coherence coherence, coherency, cohesion, cohesiveness - the state of cohering or sticking together
	2.	incoherence - nonsense that is simply incoherent and unintelligible unintelligibility, incoherency hokum, meaninglessness, nonsense, nonsensicality, bunk - a message that seems to convey no meaning word salad - jumble of incoherent speech as sometimes heard in schizophrenia

incoherence

noun unintelligibility, inarticulateness, disconnectedness, disjointedness Her incoherence was enough to tell him that something was wrong.

Collins Thesaurus of the English Language – Complete and Unabridged 2nd Edition. 2002 © HarperCollins Publishers 1995, 2002

Translations

تَفَكُّك، عَدَم تَماسُك

nesouvislost

mangel på sammenhæng

Inkohärenz Zusammenhangslosigkeit

incohérence

összefüggéstelenség

rugl; ósamkvæmni

incoerenza

mangel på sammenheng

nesúvislosť

abuk sabuk olma

不连贯无条理

incoherence

[ˌɪnkəʊˈhɪərəns] N [of ideas, policies] → incoherencia f, falta f de coherencia
his attempts to explain degenerated into incoherence → en su intento por dar una explicación cayó en la más absoluta incoherencia

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

incoherence

[ˌɪnkəʊˈhɪərəns] n

[person] → incohérence f

[policy, approach] → incohérence f

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

incoherence

n (of style, prose) → Zusammenhanglosigkeit f, → mangelnder Zusammenhang; with each drink his incoherence grew → seine Worte wurden mit jedem Glas wirrer or zusammenhangloser

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

incoherence

[ˌɪnkəʊˈhɪər/əns] n → incoerenza

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

incoherent

(inkouˈhiərənt) adjective

talking, writing etc in a way which is not easy to follow. He was quite incoherent with rage.

ˌincoˈherently adverb

ˌincoˈherence noun

incoherence

n. incoherencia, falta de coordinación de las ideas.

English-Spanish Medical Dictionary © Farlex 2012

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

'Miggs,' said Mrs Varden faintly, and with symptoms of approaching incoherence, 'is attached to me, and that is sufficient to draw down hatred upon her in this house.

View in context

Whereupon Victor administered a rebuke in the form of a volley of abuse, which, owing to its rapidity and incoherence, was all but incomprehensible to Edna.

View in context

There is a striking incoherence in the objections which have appeared, and sometimes even from the same quarter, not much calculated to inspire a very favorable opinion of the sincerity or fair dealing of their authors.

View in context

Seeing that the woman standing in the doorway was moving to go, he shouted to her, "Wait a minute, I said." And with the inability to express himself, the incoherence that Konstantin knew so well, he began, with another look round at everyone, to tell his brother Kritsky's story: how he had been expelled from the university for starting a benefit society for the poor students and Sunday schools; and how he had afterwards been a teacher in a peasant school, and how he had been driven out of that too, and had afterwards been condemned for something.

View in context

The poor, senseless young man was not aware of the incoherence of his words, while Milady was reading with her lynx's eyes the very depths of his heart.

View in context

The Same Subject Continued, and the Incoherence of the Objections to the New Plan Exposed From the Independent Journal.

View in context

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.

View in context

This she did not comprehend, attributing her incomprehension to his incoherence.

View in context

His purpose in employing, in the denunciation of shams and insincerities, a form itself so far removed from directness and simplicity was in part, evidently, to shock people into attention; but after all, the style expresses appropriately his genuine sense of the incoherence and irony of life, his belief that truth can be attained only by agonizing effort, and his contempt for intellectual and spiritual commonplaceness.

View in context

In trying to state the nature of that necessity he stammered himself into utter incoherence. No physical impossibility stood in the way of his whim.

View in context

He was officially accessible to every blundering old woman who had incoherence to bestow upon him, and readily received the Boffins.

View in context

I fancy that the true explanation is this: It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style.

View in context