junction

junction, confluence, concourse are comparable when meaning the act, state, or place of meeting or uniting.

Junction, the most general of these words, applies to the meeting or uniting usually of material things (as roads, rivers, lines, or railroads)

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at all the street junctions along the coronation procession route, traffic is slowed— Panter-Downes

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Brattleboro spreads along the Connecticut from its junction with the West river— Amer. Guide Series: Vt.

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electricity produced by the junction of two dissimilar metals— S. F. Mason

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or less often of immaterial things

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the junction of the Senecan influence with the native tradition— T. S. Eliot

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a fairly close junction of interest between Brady and the so-called Standard Oil group— H. P. Willis

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and only occasionally of persons or groups of persons

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another small force of Frenchmen, reinforced by Ethiopian natives, moved westward, seeking junction with [Major] Marchand— Lengyel

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there he proposed to effect his junction with the man who should make all the difference to this new civil war— Belloc

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Confluence suggests a flowing movement that brings things together. It is applicable to two or more things or persons viewed as things which flow or seem to flow toward a point where they merge and mingle

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the confluence of cowboys, cattle traders, and railroad men gave Dodge City a lively homicidal character— Life

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It specifically applies to the place at which streams unite, often to form a larger stream or body of water

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the Ohio river is formed by the confluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers

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this river, which is formed by the confluence of the historic Tigris and Euphrates rivers— Boschen

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Concourse places the emphasis on a running or flocking together of great numbers of persons or things

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the . . . frame of the universe was not the product of chance, or fortuitous concourse of particles of matter— Hale

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It is commonly used of a place, sometimes out of doors but sometimes in such a great building as a railroad terminal, in which there is an endless flow of persons or things passing through

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just off the waiting room is the passenger concourse, a 24 x 1200-foot "bon voyage deck" where passengers of the Lurline arrive and depart and their friends greet them or wave them on their way— Ships and the Sea

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