incoherence

See also: incohérence

English

Etymology

From in- +‎ coherence, formed on model of Italian incoerenza.

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ˌɪnkəʊˈhɪəɹəns/

Noun

incoherence (countable and uncountable, plural incoherences)

(uncountable) The quality of being incoherent.
1. 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, 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,
    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:
    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, 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, 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.
2. (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,
    if it 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
(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.