continuous
English
Etymology
Either via Old French continueus, or directly from Latin continuus, from contineō (“hold together”).
Pronunciation
- enPR: kən-tĭnʹyo͞o-əs, IPA(key): /kənˈtɪnjuːəs/
Audio (US) (file)
Adjective
continuous (not comparable)
- Without stopping; without a break, cessation, or interruption
- Synonym: nonstop
- 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
- Synonyms: protracted, extended
- a continuous line of railroad
- (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.[1]
Synonyms
- (without break, cessation, or interruption in time): constant, continual (but see usage notes above), incessant, never-ending, ongoing, unbroken, unceasing, unending, uninterrupted; see also Thesaurus:continuous
- (without break, cessation, or interruption in space): connected, continued, extended, protracted, unbroken
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
- continuous distribution
- continuous function
- continuous group
- continuous line illusion
- continuous map
- continuous mapping theorem
- continuous space
- continuous vector bundle
- continuously differentiable function
- uniformly continuous
Related terms
Translations
without break, cessation, or interruption in time
|
|
without break, cessation, or interruption in space
|
|
in mathematical analysis
|
|
in grammar
|
See also
References
- “continual” in Paul Brians, Common Errors in English Usage, 2nd rev. and exp. edition, Wilsonville, Or.: William, James & Company, 2009, ISBN 978-1-59028-207-6.
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.