vergence
/ˈvɜː(ɹ)dʒəns/noun
vergence is a noun meaning “The simultaneous turning of both eyes when focusing” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled V-E-R-G-E-N-C-E, and it appears about once in every 24 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of vergence is vergences.
What does vergence mean?
noun
- 1
The simultaneous turning of both eyes when focusing.
- 2
A measure of convergence or divergence of rays.
- 3
The direction of the overturned component of an asymmetric fold.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce vergence?
- /ˈvɜː(ɹ)dʒəns/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of vergence
- vergences plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is vergence?
Vergence appears about once in every 24 million words in written English, the 148,541st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does vergence come from?
From verge (“tend, incline”, from Latin vergere) + -ence, synonym of earlier (1660s) vergency (the equivalent of French vergence). Coined as a technical term in ophthalmology, as a hypernym of convergence and divergence, in 1902. The sense of the numeric quantity in geometric optics was introduced, from use of the term in physiological optics, in the 1920s.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).