infinite

From Latin infīnītus, from in- (“not”) + fīnis (“end”) + the perfect passive participle ending -itus.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈɪnfɪnɪt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈɪnfɪnɪt/, /ˈɪnfənɪt/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: in‧fi‧nite

infinite (comparative more infinite, superlative most infinite)

1. Indefinably large, countlessly great; immense. [from 14th c.]
   • 1603, John Florio, transl.; Michel de Montaigne, chapter 40, in The Essayes, […], book I, printed at London: By Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], OCLC 946730821:

     The number is so infinite, that verily it would be an easier matter for me to reckon up those that have feared the same.

   • (Can we date this quote?) H. Brooke

     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.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Marlowe

     infinite riches in a little room

   • (Can we date this quote?) John Milton

     which infinite calamity shall cause to human life

2. Boundless, endless, without end or limits; innumerable. [from 15th c.]
   • (Can we date this quote?) Bible, Psalms cxlvii. 5

     Great is our Lord, and of great power; his understanding is infinite.

3. With plural noun: infinitely many. [from 15th c.]
   • 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.

4. (mathematics) Greater than any positive quantity or magnitude; limitless. [from 17th c.]
5. (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, retrieved 2012-11-20:

     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.

6. (grammar) Not limited by person or number. [from 19th c.]
7. (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.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Moore (Encyc. of Music) to this entry?)

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 [-ɑɪnɑɪt] and church congregations still on occasion adopt that pronunciation.

• amaranthine
• boundless
• countless
• endless
• immeasurable
• inestimable
• interminable
• limitless
• unbounded
• unending
• unlimited
• vast

• finite
• infinitesimal
• limited

• (set theory): countably infinite
• (set theory): uncountable

• infinitive

infinite

1. Infinitely many.

infinite (plural infinites)

1. Something that is infinite in nature.
   • 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.

infinite

1. Feminine plural of adjective infinito.

īnfīnīte

1. vocative masculine singular of īnfīnītus

• 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