Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Continuous
1.
Without break, cessation, or interruption; without intervening space or time; uninterrupted; unbroken; continual; unceasing; constant; continued; protracted; extended;
as, a
. continuous
line of railroad; a continuous
current of electricityhe can hear its
continuous
murmur. Longfellow.
2.
(Bot.)
Not deviating or varying from uninformity; not interrupted; not joined or articulated.
Syn. –
Continuous
, Continual
. Continuous is the stronger word, and denotes that the continuity or union of parts is absolute and uninterrupted; as, a continuous sheet of ice; a continuous flow of water or of argument. So
Daniel Webster
speaks of “a continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England.” Continual, in most cases, marks a close and unbroken succession of things, rather than absolute continuity. Thus we speak of continual showers, implying a repetition with occasional interruptions; we speak of a person as liable to continual calls, or as subject to continual applications for aid, etc. See Constant
. Webster 1828 Edition
Continuous
CONTINUOUS
,Adj.
Definition 2024
continuous
continuous
English
Adjective
continuous (not comparable)
- Without break, cessation, or interruption; without intervening time.
- a continuous current of electricity
- 1847, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline: a tale of Acadie, Ticknor and Fields (1854), page 90:
- he can hear its continuous murmur
- Without intervening space; continued; protracted; extended.
- a continuous line of railroad
- (botany) Not deviating or varying from uniformity; not interrupted; not joined or articulated.
- (analysis, of a function) Such that, for every x in the domain, for each small open interval D about f(x), there's an interval containing x whose image is in D.
- (mathematics, more generally, of a function) Such that each open set in the range has an open preimage.
- Each continuous function from the real line to the rationals is constant, since the rationals are totally disconnected.
- (grammar) Expressing an ongoing action or state.
Usage notes
- Continuous is stronger than continual. It denotes that the continuity or union of parts is absolute and uninterrupted, as in a continuous sheet of ice, or a continuous flow of water or of argument. So Daniel Webster speaks of "a continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England." By contrast, continual usually marks a close and unbroken succession of things, rather than absolute continuity. Thus we speak of continual showers, implying a repetition with occasional interruptions; we speak of a person as liable to continual calls, or as subject to continual applications for aid.[1]
Synonyms
- (without break, cessation, or interruption in time): constant, continual (but see usage notes above), incessant, never-ending, ongoing, unbroken, unceasing, unending, uninterrupted
- (without break, cessation, or interruption in space): connected, unbroken
- See also Wikisaurus:continuous
Antonyms
- (without break, cessation, or interruption in time): broken, discontinuous, discrete, intermittent, interrupted
- (without break, cessation, or interruption in space): broken, disconnected, disjoint, unbroken
- (in mathematical analysis): discontinuous, stepwise
Derived terms
- continuous brake
- continuous impost
- continuously
- continuousness
in mathematics
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Related terms
Translations
without break, cessation, or interruption in time
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without break, cessation, or interruption in space
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in mathematical analysis
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in grammar
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See also
References
- ↑ “continual/continuous”, Brians, Paul Common Errors in English Usage, (2nd Edition, November 17, 2008), William, James & Company, 304 pp., ISBN 978-1-59028207-6