confluence

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin cōnfluentia (“a flowing together”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Latin cōnfluēns, the present participle of cōnfluō (“to flow together”),^[3][4][7][8] which is formed from con- (“together”) and fluō (“to flow”).^[3][4] The OED compares Middle French confluence, recorded in the 15th century,^[2] and the Middle English Dictionary and Dictionary.com allow a French as well as a Latin source.^[9][10] The Latin verb is also behind confluent and fluent.^[4][3] Weekley and the OED note that a town at the meeting of rivers could take its name from the same word, as Koblentz on the Rhine and the Moselle did from Latin Confluentes.^[11][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A flocking together or a crowd of people: about 1425,^[9] and in a translation of Higden's Polychronicon probably made before 1425, where serpents take theire confluence to a place.^[9][4] The OED's first record is from 1447, in Bokenham, of a great gathering of people coming to a sacrifice.^[2][9] Etymonline dates the word to the early 15th century in the sense of a flowing together of streams,^[3] but the OED and the Shorter Oxford record the river senses only from the 16th century.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

In Middle English the word was used mostly of people streaming to a place and of the crowd they formed, and once of a flood of tears.^[9] The literal Latin sense, the joining of streams and the place where rivers meet, appears in Leland's Itinerary before 1552,^[2] and a body of water formed by such a union from 1615.^[2][5] From 1606 it was used of things meeting or collecting in one place and figuratively from 1641,^[2] and Skeat applied it in 1887 to word forms of different origin running together.^[2] Johnson (1755) put the junction of streams first and quoted Shakespeare's "this confluence, this great flood of visiters" for a crowding of people.^[12][6] A verb confluence, to crowd a place with people, was recorded in 1656 but did not survive.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1425 – a streaming together of people; a gathering or crowd.^[9][4]
• 1447 – a numerous assembly of people.^[2][9]
• c. 1450 – a flood of tears.^[9]
• before 1552 – the flowing together of streams; the place where rivers meet.^[2][5]
• 1560 – as the name of towns at the meeting of rivers, especially Koblentz (now obsolete).^[2]
• 1606 – of things, a coming together in one place.^[2]
• 1615 – a combined flood formed by several streams.^[2][5]
• 1641 – figurative use.^[2]
• 1887 – the running together of originally distinct word forms.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The flowing together of two or more rivers or streams, or the place where they meet: The old mill stood at the confluence of the brook and the river.^[13][6][2]
2. A coming together of things or people in one place; a convergence: a lucky confluence of circumstances.^[13][6][2]
3. A large gathering of people; a crowd or concourse.^[13][6][2]
4. The stream or body of water formed by the joining of two or more streams.^[6][2][5]

Related words

• confluent
• influence
• affluence
• effluence
• refluence
• fluent
• flux
• conflux

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 q r s t u 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 d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins