continuous
English
Etymology
From Latin continuus, from contineō (“hold together”). Displaced native Old English singal.
Pronunciation
- enPR: kən-tĭnʹyo͞o-əs, IPA(key): /kənˈtɪn.juː.əs/
Audio (US) (file)
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, 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, connected, continued, unbroken
- Antonyms: broken, disconnected, disjoint
- 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]
Antonyms
- discontinuous
- non-continuous, noncontinuous
Derived terms
- continuous aspect
- continuous bag of words
- continuous brake
- continuous clock
- continuous delivery
- continuous erythropoietin receptor activator
- continuous impost
- continuous integration
- continuously
- continuousness
- continuous phase
- continuous tense
- continuous variable
- continuous wave
- future continuous
- future perfect continuous
- lower semi-continuous
- past continuous
- past perfect continuous
- present continuous
- present perfect continuous
- upper semi-continuous
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
- contain
- continuity
- continued
- continuum
Translations
without break, cessation, or interruption in time
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without break, cessation, or interruption in space
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in botany
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in mathematical analysis
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in grammar
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See also
- constant
- contiguous
References
- Paul Brians (2009), “continual”, in Common Errors in English Usage, 2nd edition, Wilsonville, Or.: William, James & Company, →ISBN.