Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Flowing together; blended into one.
- adj. Pathology Merging or running together so as to form a mass, as sores in a rash.
- n. One of two or more confluent streams.
- n. A tributary.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Flowing together; meeting in their course, as two streams.
- In anatomy, having grown or become blended together, as two bones which were originally separate.
- In botany and zoology, blended into one: us, confluent leaves.
- In pathol: Running together: as, confluent pustules.
- Characterized by confluent pustules: as, confluent smallpox.
- Rich; affluent.
- n. A tributary stream: as, the Mohawk is a confluent of the Hudson.
- n. A joining or confluence, as of two streams.
Wiktionary
- adj. Converging, merging into continuous shape (of two or more objects).
- adj. meteorology (Of wind) which converges, especially when viewed on a weather chart
- adj. biology Describing cells in a culture that merge to form a mass
- adj. geometry (Of a triangle) which is exactly the same size as another triangle.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Flowing together; meeting in their course; running one into another; flowing together to form a single stream.
- adj. (Bot.) Blended into one; growing together, so as to obliterate all distinction.
- adj. Running together or uniting, as pimples or pustules.
- adj. Characterized by having the pustules, etc., run together or unite, so as to cover the surface.
- n. A small steam which flows into a large one.
- n. obsolete The place of meeting of steams, currents, etc.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a branch that flows into the main stream
- adj. flowing together
Etymologies
- Middle English, from Latin cōnfluēns, cōnfluent-, present participle of cōnfluere, to flow together : com-, com- + fluere, to flow; see bhleu- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I ought to have sent to warn the police and the health officers of the city, for I was sure that the man was suffering from what is commonly called confluent smallpox.”
“The Toleure, a tributary of the Aubonne, frequently large enough to be called a confluent, flows out from the foot of a wall of rock composed of regular parallelopipeds, and in the spring, when the snows are melting freely, its sources burst out at various levels of the rock.”
“In my former cases the pustule produced by the insertion of the virus was more like one of those which are so thickly spread over the body in a bad kind of confluent smallpox.”
The Harvard Classics Volume 38 Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology)
“confluent' at the moment at which our imperfect knowing might pass into knowing of a completed type.”
“If one invests personally in a cause one has long championed, does it not make one's interests more confluent?”
The Huffington Post: David Katz, M.D.: Health Promotion: Practice What You Preach
“In a covenant of above and below, may we be confluent with each changing tide; our partnership both the anchor and the flowfor all the days of our lives.”
“That upper level confluent zone is important for keeping cold air in for us," he said, adding, "It's not a textbook confluent zone, but it's an added factor that's helping to keep the colder air in.”
The Washington Post: At weather expo, top snow expert shares views
“A storm that moved through New England today, dropping 2-4 inches of snow in the process, has helped reinforce what is known as a "confluent zone" to the northeast of Washington.”
The Washington Post: At weather expo, top snow expert shares views
“HH: The most important thing that influenced both my love of science and art was a childhood where thinking and making were confluent.”
“Meteorologists call such a look confluent flow which is usually an area where air molecules are converging which causes the weight of the atmosphere above the earth's surface to increase.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘confluent’.
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A Galimafrée of Plant Anatomy & Morph...
A hodgepodge, jumble, jambalaya, *gallimaufry, circus and tent revival of plant anatomy and morphology terms and phrases - its a big tent, and no tickets are required.
*array, collecti...naked bud, leaf blade, brochidodromous, serrate, cork cambium, rhizomatous, flower stalk, deciduous sepal, petal, whorl, nectar gland, stamen and 1348 more...
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September Words-10033
During the month of September, post at least 10 new words to this list. Make sure you cite where you read the word (book/author/pg) and quote the context/sentence where you found it. If someone has...
magnetoshere, pillage, raillery, Quarreling, alcove, myriad, Facade, Mundane, Exhibitionist, Flak, duress, Trichinosis and 74 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6689 more...
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Words from Moby Dick
frigate, presumptuous, genteel, succor, hearthstone, gentry, factitious, bilious, insurgent, portent, enervate, genuflect and 303 more...
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The Whiteness of the Whale
Words in Melville's "Moby Dick"
grapnels, spile, pea coffee, farrago, grego, bosky, bombazine, brevet, cenotaph, cupidity, kelson, obliquity and 164 more...
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Moby-Dick
Interesting words and usages.
hypo, spile, hunks, grapnel, squitchy, skrimshander, monkey jacket, direful, grego, wrapall, dreadnaught, bosky and 158 more...
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jaden's Words
countermand, reconcile, pervasive, inherent, dichotomy, ancillary, tenuous, viable, potentate, gestalt, esoteric, ephemeral and 136 more...
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InstantWordPower
sesquipedalian, optometrist, quadruped, biped, bimonthly, bifocal, bicuspid, bivalve, quadraphonic, quadruplet, quadruple, quadrilateral and 107 more...
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List 12
Derivatives from Chapter 12 of Part One of English Words from Latin and Greek Elements
incredulous, decadent, distracting, elevate, pendulous, florid, effluent, pernicious, factitious, feasible, confluent, renovate and 8 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for confluent.
yarb A confluent smallpox had in all directions flowed over his face...
- Melville, Moby-Dick, ch. 19 Jul 23, 2008