Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
🤝 Flowing together 🌊 A joining stream
confluent

confluent

1 7.5
Flowing together and joining at the same point, like two rivers
  • adjective
  • /kənˈfluːənt/
translation icon : confluente
  • As the snow melted, the waters from the hills flowed confluent into the valley below.
  • cells were 80%-90% confluent
  • confluent area

Examples

  • During the summer rains, the smaller streams often become confluent with the main river.

  • So not only do we have endothelial cells, but they're confluent so that they have really tight junctions between cells.

  • The rash became confluent; a centrifugal distribution and prominent petechia appeared at sites of trauma or pressure.

    Academic text (2014)

  • She was hospitalized, after which a maculopapular rash developed and became confluent.

    Academic text (2014)

  • She also had confluent bronchopneumonic foci of the right lung and a right pleural effusion.

    Academic text (2004)

  • The technology is particularly adept at imaging confluent cells—those that grow very close to one another and typically cover the entire petri dish.

    Blog text (15)

  • The two rivers became confluent as they merged into a single, wider stream.

Antonyms

divergent
20 6.5

Tending to become different and move apart

How Joined

confluent
1 7.5
approaching
11 2.7
separate
829 2.1

Surface Forms

confluent positive

Morphology

confluent = fluent (semi-transparent) = con + flu + ent

The idea of 'flowing together' is partly recoverable from 'fluent', but many learners mainly know 'fluent' in the language-proficiency sense and may not infer the river sense easily.

Etymology

Confluent meaning 'flowing together' comes from Latin con- 'together' and fluere 'to flow', like the word flow or fluid. That's why we call rivers, skin patches, or ideas 'confluent' when they join and become one.