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adherence

UK/ədˈhɪə.ɹəns/US/ədˈhɪɹ.əns/
nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,979 of 15,258mostly written

Adherence is sticking firmly to a rule or a belief. Strict adherence, adherence to the guidelines, poor adherence.

In medicine it has replaced compliance for a reason: adherence treats the patient as somebody who agreed to a plan rather than somebody obeying orders. Elsewhere it means keeping to a standard exactly.

Definitions of adherence

  1. 1nounadherenceSticking firmly to a rule or a belief.C1

    “The factory's strict adherence to safety rules has kept accidents very low.”

adherence is a sticking.

Where it comes from

Latin adhaerentia comes from adhaerere, to stick to, from ad plus haerere, to cling.

  1. Medieval Latin

    adhaerentia

  2. Middle French

    adhérence

  3. English, today

    adherence

From Middle French adhérence, from Medieval Latin adhaerentia. From Middle French adhérence, from Latin adhaerentia.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

adherence in the wild

  • In the Eastern Orthodox Church, akribeia is the strict adherence to the letter of the law of the Church.

    Akribeia

  • The defining character of phrase structure grammars is thus their adherence to the constituency relation, as opposed to the dependency relation of dependency grammars.

    Phrase structure grammar

  • Scout spirit is an attitude that Scouts around the world are supposed to show, based on adherence to the ideals of Scouting.

    Scout Spirit

  • In medicine, patient adherence describes the degree to which a person correctly follows medical advice.

    Patient adherence

  • Both patient and health-care provider affect adherence, and a positive physician-patient relationship is the most important factor in improving compliance.

    Patient adherence

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.