▪ I. confluent, a.
(ˈkɒnfluːənt)
[ad. L. confluent-em, pr. pple. of conflu-ĕre to flow together (as two rivers), f. con- + fluĕre to flow: cf. fluent.]
1. Of streams or moving fluids: Flowing together so as to form one stream; uniting so as to form one body of fluid. See esp. quot. 1851.
| 1612 Drayton Poly-olb. xx. (R.), These confluent floods. 1651 Biggs New Disp. ¶232 The confluent blood. 1830 Lyell Princ. Geol. I. 252 The Ganges and Burrampooter have probably become confluent within the historical era. 1851–9 Manual Sc. Enq. 200 Rivers are said to be confluent when both branches are nearly equally deflected from their former direction. 1883 G. Lloyd Ebb & Flow II. 250 Rushing together like confluent streams. |
b. Also said of roads, valleys, mountain-chains, etc., and fig. of trains of circumstances.
| 1816 Southey in Q. Rev. XVI. 551 All the other confluent causes of discontent are trifling. 1849 De Quincey Eng. Mail Coach Wks. 1862 IV. 329 The separate roads from Liverpool and from Manchester to the north become confluent. 1865 Geikie Scen. & Geol. Scot. ix. 236 Numerous confluent valleys, whose united waters..enter the sea. |
2. Flowing together in a body; forming one continuous moving mass. Also fig.
| 1718 Prior Solomon i. 561 The whole ocean's confluent waters swell. 1842 Blackw. Mag. LII. 411 This vast confluent tumult. |
3. Of a number of things originally separate: Meeting or ‘running’ into each other at the margins, so as to form a continuous mass or surface. a. Pathol. Applied to the eruption in smallpox and other diseases, when the vesicles run together.
| 1722 [see coherent a. 1 c.]. 1741 Compl. Fam. Piece i. i. 44 If the Pox was confluent or run together on the Face. 1801 Med. Jrnl. V. 536 The next morning..many [pimples] had appeared, which gradually thickened and became confluent. Ibid. IX. 365 Two children..confined with the confluent Small-pox. 1882 Carpenter in 19th Cent. App. 531 The confluent variety of Small-pox. |
b. Applied to spots, markings, surfaces, etc.: Blending together or passing into each other, without marked lines of division.
| 1814 Southey in Q. Rev. II. 61 That confluent pronounciation which all persons perceive in a language with which they are imperfectly acquainted. 1869 Farrar Fam. Speech iii. (1873) 90 The galaxy white with the glory of confluent suns. 1871 Darwin Desc. Man II. xiv. 134 Wherever the white spots are large and stand near each other the surrounding dark zones become confluent. 1874 Coues Birds N.W. 61 The markings becoming confluent, or nearly so, at or around the larger end. 1877 F. G. Heath Fern W. 220 The sori set face to face, then become confluent. 1888 Scribner's Mag. III. 427 Many old vases have what we may call confluent necks, some amphoræ for instance, where the passage to the body is quite unmarked in the shape. |
4. Of organic members, structures, processes, etc.: Running together; becoming at length united, connected, or blended into one.
| 1823 Crabb, Confluent..is an epithet for leaves or lobes. 1854 Owen in Circ. Sc. (1865) II. 45/1 Groups of more or less confluent bones called ‘vertebræ’. Ibid. 51/2 By ‘confluent’ is meant the cohesion or blending together of two bones which were originally separate. 1862 Darwin Fertil. Orchids Introd. 5 [The stamen] is confluent with the Pistil forming the Column. 1870 Rolleston Anim. Life 34 The anterior hypapophysis of the vertebra and its centrum which is more or less confluent with that of the ‘axis’. 1880 Gray Struct. Bot. iii. §4. 100 Some of these blades are apt to be confluent; that is, a divided leaf is often in part merely parted. |
† 5. Affluent or abounding in. Obs. rare—1.
| c 1611 Chapman Iliad ix. 157 Th' inhabitants in flocks and herds are wondrous confluent. |
▪ II. confluent, n.
(ˈkɒnfluːənt)
[In sense 1 ad. L. confluent-em, pl. confluent-es, the pr. pple. used as a masc. n.; cf. F. confluent in same sense. In sense 2, n. use of prec.]
† 1. A confluence of rivers; the place where streams or rivers unite. Rarely in pl. [= L. confluentes, or perh. for confluence.] Obs.
| 1600 Holland Livy iv. xvii. 151 The Roman Dictator..abode upon the banckes of the Confluent (where both rivers runne into one). 1601 ― Pliny I. 140 Where Euphrates the riuer..ioineth with Tigris in one confluent. 1610 ― Camden's Brit. i. 401 Ouse..is augmented with a namelesse brooke, at whose confluents is..Temesford. 1611 Coryat Crudities 59 A little beyond the townes end the River Arar and the Rhodanus doe make a confluent. |
2. A stream which unites and flows with another: properly applied to streams of nearly equal size; but sometimes loosely used for affluent, i.e. a smaller stream flowing into a larger.
| 1850 Layard Nineveh vii. 160 The Supna, one of its confluents. 1860 Sat. Rev. X. 563/1 The principles on which one confluent is selected rather than another for the honour of being called the main stream, are not very easy to determine. 1861 W. H. Russell in Times 10 July, Commanding the Mississippi, here about 700 yards broad, and a small confluent which runs into it. |