[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., XI. 61. That confluent pronunciation 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. 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.
