coalescentadj.n.

1654 H. Vaughan tr. J. E. Nieremberg 2 Excellent Disc. 82 in Flores Solitudinis The Joy of Conscience is Natures recompence, the coalescent reward, or fruite of integrity, an entailed happinesse, the native blandishment of life, and the minds mighty purchase.

1655 H. Vaughan Silex Scintillans (ed. 2) ii. 35 For Coalescent by that Band We are his body grown.

1765 W. Ward Ess. Gram. 161 The characteristic is denoted by the coalescent participle.

1848 J. D. Dana U.S. Exploring Exped.: Zoophytes (new ed.) 276 Branches divaricate, often coalescent.

1872 H. A. Nicholson Man. Palæontol. 160 The abdominal segments are coalescent.

1938 Life 26 Sept. 28/1 Most coalescent twins are born dead or die soon after birth.

2001 J. Coe Rotters' Club (2002) 142 Only when we are together, coalescent, infibulate, will I attain that fugitive condition of nirvana which has been the sole desideratum of my infructuous, miscarried existence.

1784 Gentleman's Mag. Apr. 246/1 Indeed the coalescents (for at the time alluded to they had not coalesced) rung many changes upon the word [sc. ‘Reciprocity’].

1860 Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc. 11 294 The labial coalescent is represented by u, w, in English, as in writing—out, house, mouse.

1920 Volta Rev. 22 592/1 The vowel sounds and coalescents, with their fine shadings, offered greater difficulty than that of the consonants.

1987 Chem. Week (Nexis) 7 Oct. 64 Organic solvents that function as coalescents to plasticize the resin particles and allow drying to a continuous film.

2004 J. H. Gillespie Population Genetics (ed. 2) 40 A coalescent is the lineage of alleles in a sample traced backward in time to their common ancestor allele.