coalesce

Etymology

It is partly borrowed from Middle French coalescer (“to cause to come together”), recorded in 1537 in the passage that the first English quotation translates, and partly borrowed from Latin coalēscō (“to grow together, unite”),^[2] the only source most dictionaries give.^{[3][4][5][6][7][8]} The Latin verb is formed from co- (“together”) and alēscō (“to grow up”),^[3][5][6][9] the inchoative of alō (“to nourish, suckle”),^[3][9][7] from Proto-Indo-European *al- (“to grow, nourish”).^[3][5] Merriam-Webster Unabridged relates it to old,^[10] and the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins names adolescent among the other English words from the Latin verb.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

To bring parts together into one whole: about 1541, in Copland's translation of Galen's Terapeutyke.^[2][4] Etymonline gives the 1540s,^[3] Dictionary.com 1535–45,^[12] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates its first intransitive sense, to grow together, to about 1656.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The first use was transitive, to bring together or combine; the Shorter Oxford marks it obsolete after the late 18th century, while the revised OED does not.^[6][2] The intransitive verb arose in the 1650s: of immaterial things in 1651, of material things in 1652, and of people or parties joining in an alliance in 1657.^[2] From 1672 it was used of parts of a plant, animal or cell that grow together, now chiefly in botany,^[2] and between 1759 and 1787 of soil caking into lumps.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined it as to unite in masses by drawing spontaneously together, with a quotation about vapours.^[13] Weekley notes that the related coalition was first used in its political sense in 1715.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1541 – to bring parts together into one whole.^[2][4]
• 1651 – intransitive, of immaterial things, to come together, merge.^[2]
• 1652 – of material things, to grow or come together.^[2]
• 1657 – of people or parties, to unite in an alliance.^[2][6]
• 1672 – of parts of a plant or animal, to grow together.^[2]
• 1759 – of soil, to cake into lumps (obsolete by 1787).^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To come together and form one mass or whole; to merge or fuse: Tiny droplets coalesced into larger drops on the glass.^[8][10][2]
2. To grow together, as the edges of a wound or the parts of a plant.^[10][2]
3. To unite for a common purpose; to join forces in a coalition.^[10][2][6]
4. To bring parts together into one whole; the Shorter Oxford marks this sense obsolete.^[2][6]

Word family

• coalescence
• coalescent
• noncoalescing

Related words

• -esce
• coalition
• adolescent
• adult
• alimony
• alumnus
• aliment
• old

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray