cohesion

Etymology

Attested from the late 17th century, borrowed from French cohésion, from Latin cohaesiō, cohaesiōnem.

noun

1. State of cohering, or of working together.
   Unit cohesion is important in the military.
2. (physics, chemistry) Various intermolecular forces that hold solids and liquids together.
3. (biology) Growing together of normally distinct parts of a plant.
4. (software engineering) Degree to which functionally related elements in a system belong together.
   Coordinate term: coupling
   In general, it is neither advisable nor possible to create such maximally cohesive classes; on the other hand, we would like cohesion to be high. When cohesion is high, it means that the methods and variables of the class are co-dependent and hang together as a logical whole. 2009, Robert C. Martin, chapter 10, in Clean Code, Prentice Hall, page 140
5. (linguistics) Grammatical or lexical relationship between different parts of the same text.
   Coordinate term: coherence