Word of the Day Archive
Saturday April 26, 2008
confluence \KON-floo-uhn(t)s\ , noun:
1. A flowing or coming together; junction.
2. The place where two rivers, streams, etc. meet.
3. A flocking or assemblage of a multitude in one place; a large collection or assemblage.
At the confluence of continents, at the narrow neck of the Nile Valley just before it spreads into the flat water-maze of the Delta, this has always been a place where elements mingle and cultures collide.
-- Max Rodenbeck, Cairo: The City Victorious
It's the combination of these various factors, then -- their historical confluence, if you will -- that must be held responsible for the rapid erosion of the church's authority over sexual matters since the Second Vatican Council.
-- Michael W. Cuneo, The Smoke of Satan
A remarkable confluence of technological and economic forces is enabling women to join the paid labor force around the world.
-- Helen E. Fisher, The First Sex
At the time, I did not appreciate what an unusually fortunate confluence of circumstances was reigning in the cinematic heavens; I thought it would go on forever with the same incandescence.
-- Phillip Lopate, Totally, Tenderly, Tragically
Outside, about a mile below, the Monongahela River met the Allegheny and the Ohio, forming the confluence of waters upon which stood Pittsburgh.
-- Stanley Bing, Lloyd: What Happened
But it is not New-York streets built by the confluence of workmen and wealth of all nations, though stretching out toward Philadelphia until they touch it, and northward until they touch New Haven, Hartford, Springfield, Worcester, and Boston, -- not these that make the real estimation.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, "American Civilization", The Atlantic, April 1862
Confluence is from Latin confluens, "flowing together," from confluere, "to flow together," from con-, "with, together" + fluere, "to flow."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for confluence
