coalesce

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 15, 2025 is: coalesce \koh-uh-LESS\ verb To coalesce is to come together to form one group or mass. // The club’s community service projects provide students with a common goal to coalesce around. // The movie is full of beautifully written scenes but they never coalesce into a whole. [See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/coalesce) Examples: “... as Angola prepares for the final, the combination of personal perseverance, team cohesion, and national pride coalesces into something bigger than a game: a celebration of resilience, dedication, and the enduring spirit of basketball in Angola.” — Sindiswa Mabunda, Forbes, 24 Aug. 2025 Did you know? The meaning of many English words equals the sum of their parts, and coalesce is a fitting example. The word unites the prefix co- (“together”) and the Latin verb alescere, meaning “to grow.” Coalesce is one of a number of English verbs (along with [mix](https://bit.ly/4gv4U40), [commingle](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/commingle), [merge](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/merge), and [amalgamate](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/amalgamate)) that refer to the act of combining parts into a whole. In particular, coalesce usually implies the merging of similar parts to form a cohesive unit, such as a political ideology, a fan-following, or (perish the thought) a [Portuguese man-of-war](https://bit.ly/3VVuzsZ), the body of which includes three types of [zooids](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/zooid).