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INCOHERENT
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Unable to express yourself clearly or fluently
Example:
incoherent with grief
Synonyms:
incoherent; tongue-tied
Classified under:
Similar:
inarticulate; unarticulate (without or deprived of the use of speech or words)
Sense 2
Meaning:
(physics) of waves having no stable definite or stable phase relation
Classified under:
Antonym:
coherent ((physics) of waves having a constant phase relation)
Domain category:
physics (the science of matter and energy and their interactions)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Without logical or meaningful connection
Example:
a turgid incoherent presentation
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
confused; disconnected; disjointed; disordered; garbled; illogical; scattered; unconnected (lacking orderly continuity)
fuzzy (confused and not coherent; not clearly thought out)
Also:
illogical; unlogical (lacking in correct logical relation)
irrational (not consistent with or using reason)
Antonym:
coherent (marked by an orderly, logical, and aesthetically consistent relation of parts)
Derivation:
incoherence (nonsense that is simply incoherent and unintelligible)
incoherence; incoherency (lack of cohesion or clarity or organization)
Context examples:
I'll fight for my Lord and Master!' and all sorts of similar incoherent ravings. It was with very considerable difficulty that they got him back to the house and put him in the padded room. One of the attendants, Hardy, had a finger broken. However, I set it all right; and he is going on well.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
But he, the honest seaman, so incapable of deceit or affectation that he could not suspect it in others, ran madly to the bell, shouting for the maid, the doctor, and the smelling-salts, with incoherent words of grief, and such passionate terms of emotion that my father thought it more discreet to twitch me by the sleeve as a signal that we should steal from the room.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Symptoms include central nervous system impairment such as as delirium with prominent symptoms of personality change, cognitive dysfunction, disorientation, incoherent speech, and psychotic symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions, smooth muscle hypotonicity, and altered cardiovascular function.
(Hypercalcemia of Malignancy, NCI Thesaurus)
Four sides of incoherent and interjectional beginnings of sentences, that had no end, except blots, were inadequate to afford her any relief.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Mr. Overton was evidently considerably excited when he sent it, and somewhat incoherent in consequence.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
As time passed away I became more calm; misery had her dwelling in my heart, but I no longer talked in the same incoherent manner of my own crimes; sufficient for me was the consciousness of them.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
But soon even these intervals of consciousness ended, and she lay hour after hour, tossing to and fro, with incoherent words on her lips, or sank into a heavy sleep which brought her no refreshment.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
In glancing over the somewhat incoherent series of memoirs with which I have endeavoured to illustrate a few of the mental peculiarities of my friend Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I have been struck by the difficulty which I have experienced in picking out examples which shall in every way answer my purpose.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
It was true, there was a perceptible halt midway in her assertion, which she glossed over with more tears and kisses and incoherent stammerings, and which Martin inferred to be her appeal for forgiveness for the time she had lacked faith in him and insisted on his getting a job.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
I had many a broken sleep inside the Yarmouth mail, and many an incoherent dream of all these things.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
