Incoherent

How to spell incoherent

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce incoherent

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does incoherent mean?

1. adjectiveExpressed without logical connection or clarity, so that it is hard to follow or understand.

Incoherent in a sentence

• The witness gave an incoherent account that the jury could not piece together.

• After the long shift he sent an incoherent email that no one in the office could decipher.

Where does incoherent come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word reaches back to the Latin verb cohaerere, meaning 'to stick together' or 'to cling as one', formed from the prefix com- 'together' and haerere 'to stick or cling'. From cohaerere came the adjective cohaerens, describing things that held firmly together, and adding the negative prefix in- 'not' produced the idea of parts that fail to hold together. English picked the word up in the early 1600s, at first in scientific and philosophical writing about matter that would not bind, then quickly in the figurative sense of speech or argument whose parts do not connect logically. The same haerere root still glues together relatives such as 'adhere', 'cohesion', and 'hesitate', which originally meant to be stuck or held back. A useful spelling cue is that the single silent-looking 'h' belongs to that 'her' from haerere, and the word keeps just one 'r', not the doubled consonant some writers expect.

How the word is built

• in- (not)
• co- (together)
• her (from Latin haerere: to stick, cling)
• -ent (adjective suffix)