- 1遵守、遵循（醫療上也指病人有沒有按照醫囑服藥，常譯「服藥遵從性」）
Adherence is the noun for sticking to a rule, a plan, a belief, or a set of standards — not bending it, not quietly dropping it. 'Strict adherence to the safety rules is required.' It is a formal word and belongs to notices, contracts, reports, and medical writing.
The pattern is nearly always 'adherence to' something. The 'to' is not optional; leaving it out is the most common mistake.
Two places you will meet it. In rules and law: adherence to the regulations, adherence to a deadline, adherence to the terms. And in medicine, where it has a specific job — 'adherence' means the patient actually takes the medicine the way the doctor said. Doctors used to say 'compliance' for this and many now prefer 'adherence', because compliance sounds like obeying an order while adherence sounds more like the patient and doctor agreeing on a plan together. That is a small, deliberate change of tone, and a nice example of how word choice carries attitude.
The physical meaning — one thing sticking to another surface — exists too, in technical writing about glue, paint, or cells. But that is rarer; for the everyday sticking sense people say 'adhesion'.
Though actually — adherence sounds in most sentences, but it can turn cold. 'Rigid adherence to the rules' is a criticism: it means someone followed the rule even when the rule made no sense.
From the word’s history
From Middle French adhérence, from Latin adhaerentia.
源自中古法文 adhérence，來自拉丁文 adhaerentia。
組成From Middle French adhérence, from Latin adhaerentia. Underneath: ad- 'to' + haerere 'to stick'. So the literal picture is 'sticking to' — and English kept both halves of that, the glue sense and the rule-following sense.
同家族的字
- adherethe verb — 'to adhere to the rules'; same ad- + haerere 'stick to'
- adhesivesame haerere 'to stick', through the Latin supine form adhaes-
- coherentsame haerere 'to stick', with co- 'together' instead — ideas that stick together and make sense
- hesitatefrom Latin haerere too; a hesitating person is, at root, someone stuck in place
原始詞典資料4 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
adherencenoun/ədˈhɪə.ɹəns/
- 1
A close physical union of two objects.
- 2
Faithful support for some cause.
- Strict adherence to the rules is required.
- The project failed because of poor adherence to deadlines.
- 3
medicinesciencesAn extent to which a patient continues an agreed treatment plan.
- 4
The fulfilment of the legal obligation of residing with wife or husband.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。