continuous
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English
Etymology
From Latin continuus, from contineō (“hold together”). Displaced native Old English singal.
Pronunciation
Adjective
continuous (not comparable)
- Without stopping; without a break, cessation, or interruption.
- Synonyms: perpetual, nonstop, incessant, ongoing; see also Thesaurus:continuous
- Antonyms: broken, discontinuous, discrete, intermittent, interrupted
- a continuous current of electricity
- 1847 November 1, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie, Boston, Mass.: William D. Ticknor & Company, →OCLC, (please specify either |part=I or II):
- he can hear its continuous murmur
- Without intervening space; continued.
- Synonyms: protracted, extended, connected, continued, unbroken
- Antonyms: broken, disconnected, disjoint
- a continuous line of railroad
- 2023 November 29, Philip Haigh, “New Piccadilly Line trains put to the test”, in RAIL, number 997, page 26:
- The dynamic tests at Wildenrath use continuous test tracks built on the site of a former Royal Air Force station that was vacated after the end of the Cold War.
- (botany) Not deviating or varying from uniformity; not interrupted; not joined or articulated.
- (mathematical 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 between two topological spaces) Such that each open set in the target space has an open preimage (in the domain space, with respect to the given function).
- 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.
Antonyms
Derived terms
- continuous aspect
- continuous bag of words
- continuous brake
- continuous-braked
- continuous clock
- continuous delivery
- continuous erythropoietin receptor activator
- continuous impost
- continuous integration
- continuously
- continuousness
- continuous phase
- continuous tense
- continuous time
- continuous variable
- continuous wave
- future continuous
- future perfect continuous
- lower semi-continuous
- past continuous
- past perfect continuous
- present continuous
- present perfect continuous
- Scott-continuous
- upper semi-continuous
in mathematics
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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