Word of the Day : September 16, 2022
Coalesce
verb koh-uh-LESS
What It Means
- Coalesce means “to come together to form one group or mass” or “to join forces.”
- // The club’s community service projects provide students with a common goal to coalesce around.
- // The ice masses coalesced into a glacier over time.
- See the entry >
COALESCE In Context
“This is European soccer—or, at least, an idealized version of it: clubs that represent something greater than themselves, offering communities narratives to coalesce around.” — Tom McTague, The Atlantic, 28 May 2022
Did You Know?
The meaning of many English words equals the sum of their parts, and coalesce is a fitting example. The word unites the prefix co- (“together”) and the Latin verb alescere, meaning “to grow.” Coalesce is one of a number of English verbs (along with mix, commingle, merge, and amalgamate) that refer to the act of combining parts into a whole. In particular, coalesce usually implies the merging of similar parts to form a cohesive unit, such as a political ideology, a fan-following, or (perish the thought) a Portuguese man-of-war, the body of which includes three types of zooids.
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