Definition of "conflux"

conflux

noun
plural confluxes
1. A merger of rivers, or the place where rivers merge.
  Quotations
  It stands on the conflux of two rivers—the Chelmer, whence the town is called, and the Cann.
  1722, Daniel Defoe, A Tour Through the Eastern Counties of England
2. A convergence or moving gathering of forces, people, or things.
  Quotations
  Thence to the gates caſt round thine eye, and ſee / What conflux iſſuing forth, or entring in: / Pretors, Proconſuls to thir Provinces / Haſting or on return, in robes of State; / Lictors and rods the enſigns of thir power; / Legions and Cohorts, turmes of horſe and wings: […]
  1671, John Milton, “The Fourth Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J. M[acock] for John Starkey […], page 81, lines 61–66
  There was a conflux of emotions and thoughts in him that would not let him either give thorough way to his anger or persevere with simple rigidity of resolve.
  1871–1872, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter LXIV, in Middlemarch […], volume IV, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, book VII, page 42
  So great was the conflux of torches, the flash and gleam of weapons, and the babel of sounds that it wrought on the mind the impression of a fire blazing up in the night.
  1903, Stanley J. Weyman, chapter 24, in The Long Night