convergence

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act, condition, quality, or fact of converging.
2. n. Mathematics The property or manner of approaching a limit, such as a point, line, function, or value.
3. n. The point of converging; a meeting place: a town at the convergence of two rivers.
4. n. Physiology The coordinated turning of the eyes inward to focus on an object at close range.
5. n. Biology The adaptive evolution of superficially similar structures, such as the wings of birds and insects, in unrelated species subjected to similar environments. Also called convergent evolution.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The character or fact of converging; tendency to one point; the fact of meeting in a point.
2. n. In mathematics: The gradual and indefinite approximation of the sum of an infinite series toward a finite value. The scalar part of the result of performing upon any vector function the operation
3. n. It is so called because, if the vector function be considered as representing the velocity and direction of a flowing fluid, the surface integral of this function over a closed surface, or the flow inward through that surface, is equal to the volume integral of the convergence within the surface. See curl.
4. n. In biology, the manifestation of a tendency, among allied or diverse groups of organisms, to assume series of modifications by the same methods or along parallel lines, and with somewhat similar results. Thus, through successive rock strata representing periods of time, species originally dissimilar evolve in such a manner that the derived forms of each series resemble each other much more than do the ancestral forms. The term is also applied to a like developmental process in a single organ or group of organs. Convergence is the process of which homomorphy is the result.

Wiktionary

1. n. The act of moving toward union or uniformity.
2. n. A meeting place.
3. n. The intersection of three electron beams for red, green and blue onto a single pixel in a CRT.
4. n. mathematics The process of approaching some limiting value.
5. n. physiology The coordinated focusing of the eyes, especially at short range.
6. n. biology The evolution of similar structures or traits in unrelated species in similar environments; convergent evolution.
7. n. The merging of distinct technologies, industries, or devices into a unified whole.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The condition or quality of converging; tendency to one point; the occurrence of two or more things coming together.
2. n. (Math.) the approach of an infinite series to a finite limit.
3. n. a representation of common ground between theories or phenomena.
4. n. the act of converging (coming closer).
5. n. (Biol.) a similarity of form or function in two or more organisms caused by evolutionary adaptations to a similarity in the environment, rather than to a common heredity.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the act of converging (coming closer)
2. n. a representation of common ground between theories or phenomena
3. n. the approach of an infinite series to a finite limit
4. n. the occurrence of two or more things coming together