cohesion.

1. The connection or unity that holds parts of a group or whole together.

2. The attractive forces that hold particles of the same substance together.

3. The grammatical and lexical links that connect clauses or other parts of a text.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• social cohesion
• organizational cohesion

On the page

Social cohesion persisted despite vigorous disagreement about the proposed policy.

Organizational cohesion weakened when the shared procedures ceased to be trusted.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic / formal. Forms: Usually uncountable. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: definition, comparison, qualification, causal analysis. Disciplines: academic writing, institutional analysis, general research. Commonness: moderately common.