adherence

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The process or condition of adhering.
• noun Faithful attachment; devotion.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun In the theory of aggregates, the aggregate of all those points of a point-aggregate which are not limiting points (that is, limits of endless series of points): called the adherence of the point-aggregate; the aggregate of all the remaining points is called its coherence.
• noun The act or state of sticking or adhering: rare in a physical sense, adhesion being commonly used. Figuratively, the character of being fixed in attachment; fidelity; steady attachment: as, an adherence to a party or opinions; the act of holding to closely: as, a rigid adherence to rules.
• noun In Scots law, the return of a husband or wife who has for a time deserted his or her spouse.
• noun In painting, the effect of those parts of a picture which, wanting relief, are not detached, and hence appear adhering to the canvas or surface. Fairholt. In logic and metaphysics, the state of being adherent. See adherent, a., 3.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The quality or state of adhering.
• noun The state of being fixed in attachment; fidelity; steady attachment; adhesion.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A close physical union of two objects.
• noun Faithful support for some cause.
• noun medicine An extent to which a patient continues an agreed treatment plan.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the property of sticking together (as of glue and wood) or the joining of surfaces of different composition
• noun faithful support for a cause or political party or religion