Incoherence

//ˌɪnkəʊˈhɪəɹəns// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The quality of being incoherent.; The quality of not making logical sense or of not being logically connected. countable, uncountable

    "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 […]"

  2. 2
    nonsense that is simply incoherent and unintelligible wordnet
  3. 3
    The quality of being incoherent.; The quality of not holding together physically. countable, obsolete, uncountable

    "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 [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 […]"

  4. 4
    lack of cohesion or clarity or organization wordnet
  5. 5
    Something incoherent; something that does not make logical sense or is not logically connected. countable

    "[…] 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."

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  1. 6
    Thinking or speech that is so disorganized that it is essentially inapprehensible to others. countable, uncountable

Synonyms

All synonyms
unintelligibilityablationabstractionalienationambiguityambivalence

Example

More examples

"The Philippines is a real hodgepodge, the people, the places, and the languages. This incoherence confuses non-Filipinos. Certainly, the Philippines is not monolithic. The Philippines has high dependency on the Anglosphere, but this affair is changing with the new acquaintances with neighbouring Asian peoples. Previously, there were just two conditions for Filipinos, being in the Philippines and being "stateside," which is now an outmoded paradigm."

Etymology

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

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.