a. and sb.; also 7 adhærent. [a. Fr. adhérent, ad. L. adhærent-em pr. pple. of adhærē-re: see ADHERE.]
A. adj.
1. Sticking fast (to), clinging, attached materially.
1615. Sandys, Trav., 215. On the South side vpon a rocke, and adherent, stood the castle.
1725. Pope, Odyssey, V. 547. Close to the cliff with both his hands he clung, And stuck adherent.
1857. J. G. Wood, Com. Obj. Sea-sh., 45. It is better that they [porphyra] should be adherent to some stone or shell.
1869. Phillips, Vesuv., viii. 240. Marked by two bands of adherent incrustation.
2. fig. Attached as an attribute or circumstance.
1588. Fraunce, Lawiers Logike, I. viii. 41. An adjunct is eyther inherent in the subject, or adherent to it.
1651. Hobbes, Leviathan, II. xxvii. 151. A Passion so adhærent to the Nature of man.
1725. Watts, Logic, II. § 4. Wks. 1814, VII. 325. Modes are said to be inherent or adherent … Adherent or improper modes arise from the joining of some accidental substance to the chief subject, which yet may be separated from it; so when a bowl is wet or a boy is cloathed, these are adherent modes.
1825. Coleridge, Wks., II. 213. The transitoriness adherent to all antithesis; for the identity or the absolute is alone eternal.
† 3. Attached in sympathy, or as a companion, partizan or follower. Const. to. Obs.
c. 1400[?]. Test. Love, I. (R.). My seruauntes shoulden … bee adherand to his spouse.
1451. in Rymer, Foedera (1710), XI. 291. All othir that woll be to Me adherent in this Party.
1548. Hall, Chron., Ed. IV. an. 3. All persones which were adherent to his aduersaries part.
1602. Fulbecke, First Pt. of Parallele, 86. It is treason … to be adherent to the King’s enemies.
4. Bot. United to each other, though normally not only distinct but belonging to distinct whorls of the plant or flower; adnate.
1830. Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 44. The stamens slightly adherent to the base of the petals.
1872. Oliver, Elem. Bot., II. 157. The coat of the latter [Sweet Chestnut] is a perianth, adherent to an inferior ovary.
B. sb.
1. One who adheres to a person, party or system; a partizan, follower or supporter. Const. of a person, of (to obs.) a thing.
c. 1460. Fortescue, Abs. & Lim. Mon. (1714), 66. His said Kyng had made such End, with him, his Adherents and Fautours, as he desired.
1528. More, Heresyes, III. Wks. 1557, 222/1. Luther and his adherentes holde this heresy, that all holy order is nothing.
1606. Holland, Suetonius, 137. The dependants and adhærents of Seianus.
1758. Johnson, Idler, No. 10, ¶ 10. Jack Sneaker is a hearty adherent to the present establishment.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 22. The adherents of Lancaster rallied round a line of bastards, and the adherents of York set up a succession of impostors.
1862. H. Spencer, First Princ., I. i. § 1. (1875), 4. The presumption that any current opinion is not wholly false, gains in strength according to the number of its adherents.
† 2. That which adheres to anything; an attached property or quality. Obs.
1636. Healey, Epictetus, xxxi. 37. All those goods which are peculiar adherents to the nature of man.
1645. Milton, Tetrachordon (1851), 162. Not a true limb … but an adherent, a sore, the gangrene of a limb.
