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infinite, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
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English
Etymology
From Middle English infinite, from Old French infinit and Latin infīnītus, from in- (“not”) + fīnis (“end”) + the perfect passive participle ending -itus. Doublet of infinito. Displaced native Old English unġeendodlīċ.
Pronunciation
- (UK) IPA(key): /ˈɪnfɪnɪt/
- (US) IPA(key): /ˈɪnfɪnɪt/, /ˈɪnfənɪt/
- Hyphenation: in‧fi‧nite
Adjective
infinite (comparative more infinite, superlative most infinite)
- Indefinably large, countlessly great; immense.
- Synonyms: immeasurable, inestimable, vast
1735, Henry Brooke, Universal Beauty:Whatever is finite, as finite, will admit of no comparative relation with infinity; for whatever is less than infinite is still infinitely distant from infinity; and lower than infinite distance the lowest or least cannot sink.
- Boundless, endless, without end or limits; innumerable.
- Synonyms: amaranthine, boundless, endless, interminable, limitless, unbounded, unending, unlimited; see also Thesaurus:infinite, Thesaurus:eternal
- (with plural noun) Infinitely many.
- Synonyms: countless; see also Thesaurus:innumerable
2012, Helen Donelan, Karen Kear, Magnus Ramage, Online Communication and Collaboration: A Reader:Huxley's theory says that if you provide infinite monkeys with infinite typewriters, some monkey somewhere will eventually create a masterpiece – a play by Shakespeare, a Platonic dialogue, or an economic treatise by Adam Smith.
- (mathematics) Greater than any positive quantity or magnitude; limitless.
- (set theory, of a set) Having infinitely many elements.
2009, Brandon C. Look, “Symbolic Logic II, Lecture 2: Set Theory”, in www.uky.edu/~look, archived from the original on 19 June 2018:For any infinite set, there is a 1-1 correspondence between it and at least one of its proper subsets. For example, there is a 1-1 correspondence between the set of natural numbers and the set of squares of natural numbers, which is a proper subset of the set of natural numbers.
- (grammar) Not limited by person or number.
- (music) Capable of endless repetition; said of certain forms of the canon, also called perpetual fugues, constructed so that their ends lead to their beginnings.
Usage notes
Although the term is incomparable in the precise sense, it can be comparable both in mathematics and set theory to compare different degrees of infinity, and informally to denote yet a larger thing.
Poets (and particularly hymn-writers before the 20th century) would commonly rhyme the word as though pronounced and church congregations still on occasion adopt that pronunciation.
Antonyms
Hyponyms
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
figuratively, very large
- Afrikaans: oneindig
- Bulgarian: безчислен (bg) (bezčislen)
- Dutch: oneindig (nl), eindeloos (nl)
- Finnish: ääretön (fi)
- French: infini (fr)
- Georgian: უსასრულო (usasrulo), უსაზღვრო (usazɣvro)
- German: unendlich (de), endlos (de), unzählige (de)
- Japanese: 途方もない (ja) (tohō mo nai), 巨大な (ja) (kyodai na)
- Maori: manomano, manotini
- Portuguese: infinito (pt) m
- Romanian: infinit (ro) m, nelimitat (ro), nesfârșit (ro)
- Russian: бесконе́чный (ru) (beskonéčnyj), несме́тный (ru) (nesmétnyj), бесчи́сленный (ru) (besčíslennyj)
- Slovene: neskončen
- Swedish: oändlig (sv), ändlös (sv)
- Turkish: devasa (tr)
- Ukrainian: неося́жний (uk) (neosjážnyj)
- Vietnamese: vô bờ, bất tận
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boundless, endless
- Afrikaans: oneindig
- Armenian: անվերջ (hy) (anverǰ)
- Belarusian: бяско́нцы (bjaskóncy), бескане́чны (bjeskanjéčny)
- Bulgarian: безкра́ен (bg) (bezkráen), безконе́чен (bg) (bezkonéčen)
- Burmese: အနန္တ (my) (a.nanta.)
- Catalan: infinit (ca)
- Chinese:
- Mandarin: 無窮/无穷 (zh) (wúqióng), 無限/无限 (zh) (wúxiàn)
- Czech: nekonečný (cs) m
- Dutch: oneindig (nl), eindeloos (nl)
- Esperanto: senfina (eo)
- Finnish: ääretön (fi), päättymätön (fi)
- French: infini (fr)
- Georgian: please add this translation if you can
- German: unendlich (de), endlos (de), unbegrenzt (de), unbeschränkt (de)
- Greek: άπειρος (el) (ápeiros)
- Ancient: ἄπειρος (ápeiros), ἀπέραντος (apérantos)
- Indonesian: nirbatas
- Irish: éigríochta
- Italian: infinito (it)
- Japanese: 果てしない (ja) (hateshinai), 無限の (ja) (mugen no)
- Kazakh: ақырсыз (aqyrsyz)
- Khmer: គ្មានទីបំផុត (kmien tii bɑmpʰot)
- Korean: 무한 (ko) (muhan)
- Latin: infīnītus
- Luxembourgish: onendlech
- Macedonian: бесконечен (beskonečen), бескраен (beskraen)
- Malay: tidak terbatas, tidak terhad
- Maori: mutungakore
- Mongolian: please add this translation if you can
- Norman: înfinni
- Norwegian:
- Bokmål: uendelig (no), endeløs, grenseløs
- Nynorsk: uendeleg, endelaus, grenselaus
- Old English: unġeendodlīċ
- Polish: nieskończony (pl) m
- Portuguese: infinito (pt) m
- Romanian: infinit (ro) m, fără limită
- Russian: бесконе́чный (ru) (beskonéčnyj), безграни́чный (ru) (bezgraníčnyj), беспреде́льный (ru) (bespredélʹnyj), бескра́йний (ru) (beskrájnij)
- Sanskrit: अनन्त (sa) (ananta), अदिति (sa) (aditi)
- Serbo-Croatian: beskonačan (sh) m
- Sinhalese: අනන්ත (si) (ananta)
- Slovak: nekonečný
- Slovene: neskončen
- Spanish: infinito (es)
- Swedish: oändlig (sv), ändlös (sv), gränslös (sv)
- Tagalog: awangganin
- Thai: อนันต์ (th) (à-nan), ไม่มีที่สิ้นสุด
- Turkish: sonsuz (tr), sınırsız (tr)
- Ukrainian: нескінче́нний (neskinčénnyj), безконе́чний (uk) (bezkonéčnyj)
- Urdu: لامتناہی (lāmutanāhī)
- Vietnamese: vô hạn (vi), bất tận
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with plural noun: infinitely many
greater than any positive quantity or magnitude
having infinitely many elements
grammar: not limited by person or number
music: capable of endless repetition
Translations to be checked
Numeral
infinite
- Infinitely many.
Noun
infinite (plural infinites)
- Something that is infinite in nature.
1827–1879 (date written), Alfred Tennyson, “Part I”, in The Lover’s Tale, London: C Kegan Paul & Co., , published 1879, →OCLC, pages 34–35:Sooner Earth / Might go round Heaven, and the strait girth of Time / Inswathe the fulness of Eternity, / Than language grasp the infinite of Love.
2004, Teun Koetsier, Luc Bergmans, Mathematics and the Divine: A Historical Study, page 449:Cautiously, Hobbes avoided asserting the equality of these infinites, and explicitly characterized the relation between them as non-inequality.
- (video games) A combo that can be used repeatedly without interruption.
2007, Adam Deats, Joe Epstein, Virtua Fighter 5, page 14:[…] prevents overpowered combos and infinites […]
References
- ^ 1852, John Weeks Moore, Complete Encyclopædia of Music
Italian
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /in.fiˈni.te/
- Rhymes: -ite
- Hyphenation: in‧fi‧nì‧te
Adjective
infinite
- feminine plural of infinito
Latin
Pronunciation
Adjective
īnfīnīte
- vocative masculine singular of īnfīnītus
References
- “infinite”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
- “infinite”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
- infinite in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette