CONTINUOUS • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Continuous

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/kəntˈɪnjuəs/ Listen

adjective

Continuous adj.

Without break, cessation, or interruption; without intervening space or time; uninterrupted; unbroken; continual; unceasing; constant; continued; protracted; extended; as, a continuous line of railroad; a continuous current of electricity. "he can hear its continuous murmur."

(Bot.) Not deviating or varying from uninformity; not interrupted; not joined or articulated.

Continuous brake (Railroad), a brake which is attached to each car a train, and can be caused to operate in all the cars simultaneously from a point on any car or on the engine.

Continuous impost. See Impost.

Synonyms: Continuous, Continual. Continuous is the stronger word, and denotes that the continuity or union of parts is absolute and uninterrupted; as, a continuous sheet of ice; a continuous flow of water or of argument. So Daniel Webster speaks of "a continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England." Continual, in most cases, 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, etc. See Constant.

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Etymology of 'Continuous'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Continuous" Quotes from Famous Books

... happens it that Ammalat is melancholy and absent? He makes great progress in every thing that does not require an attentive and continuous reflection, and a gradual development; but when the matter involves remote consequences, his mind resembles a short fire-arm, which sends its charge quickly, direct, and strongly, but not to any distance. Is this a defect of his mind? or is it that his attention is entirely occupied with something ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various

... have grown at the nucleus, expanded abroad and experimented more or less successfully with various means of exploiting nature, man and human society. Most of the competitors for survival and supremacy dropped out or were forced out in the course of continuous survival struggles. ...

— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... the benches, which stood in a continuous row along the wall, a girl of eight, in a brown dress and long black stockings, lay asleep on a coat lined with fox. Her face was pale, her hair was flaxen, her shoulders were narrow, her whole body ...

— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... Physical Laboratory, had arranged that the German Antarctic Expedition, several observatories in low latitudes and our own Expedition, should take special "quick runs," synchronously, twice each month. A "quick run" was a continuous, careful observation made over a period of two hours, on a more searching time-scale then usual. Until the Magnetograph House was established this could not be done efficiently, and so the construction of this hut was pushed on as quickly ...

— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... instructress in the art. Seeing her thick-set, coarse figure, and holding your arm around her solid waist as you waited for the bar, you would not have dreamed of the fairy lightness it assumed the moment feet moved in time with the music. If life had been a continuous waltz no partner of hers less awkward than a rhinoceros could have avoided falling in love with her. But waltzes ended all too soon and the thistle-down sylph of a woman became my plain homely Blanquette, ...

— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke

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