# continuity
## English
### Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French continuité, from Latin continuitas, equivalent to continue +‎ -ity.

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation, Canada) IPA: /ˌkɒn.tɪˈnjuː.ɪ.ti/
* (US) IPA: /ˌkɑn.tɪˈn(j)u.ə.ti/, [ˌkɑn.tɪˈn(j)u.ə.ɾi]
* Audio (US):(file)
* (Wales, Ottawa Valley) IPA: /ˌkɒn.tɪˈnɪu̯.ɪ.ti/
* Hyphenation: con‧ti‧nu‧i‧ty
* Rhymes: -uːɪti

### Noun

continuity (countable and uncountable, plural continuities)
* Lack of interruption or disconnection; the quality of being continuous in space or time.
    Considerable continuity of attention is needed to read German philosophy.
** 1946 March and April, “The Why and The Wherefore: "Fitted" and "Piped" Wagons”, in Railway Magazine, page 128:Vacuum-fitted wagons are provided with complete vacuum-brake equipment; "piped" wagons have through pipes, enabling them to be marshalled in vacuum-braked trains without interrupting the continuity of the vacuum brake connections, but are not provided themselves with vacuum brake gear.
** 1959 March, “The 2,500 h.p. electric locomotives for the Kent Coast electrification”, in Trains Illustrated, page 123:As on Nos. 20001-3, the motor and generator armature shafts of the new locomotive each carry a heavy flywheel to provide kinetic energy and help maintain the speed of the motor-generator set during interruptions of supply, as at breaks in the continuity of the conductor rail.
* (uncountable, mathematics) A characteristic property of a continuous function.
** 1911, William Anthony Granville, Elements of the Differential and Integral Calculus:The definition of a continuous function assumes that the function is already defined for x = a. If this is not the case, however, it is sometimes possible to assign such a value to the function for x = a that the condition of continuity shall be satisfied.
* (narratology) A narrative device in episodic fiction where previous and/or future events in a series of stories are accounted for in present stories.
** 2012 April 29, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Treehouse of Horror III” (season 4, episode 5; originally aired 10/29/1992)”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)‎:In “Treehouse Of Horror” episodes, the rules aren’t just different—they don’t even exist. If writers want Homer to kill Flanders or for a segment to end with a marriage between a woman and a giant ape, they can do so without worrying about continuity or consistency or fans griping that the gang is behaving out of character.
* (uncountable, film) Consistency between multiple shots depicting the same scene but possibly filmed on different occasions.
* (uncountable, radio, television) The announcements and messages inserted by the broadcaster between programmes.

#### Synonyms

* (lack of interruption): See also Thesaurus:continuity

#### Antonyms

* (antonym(s) of “lack of interruption”): discontinuity; see also Thesaurus:discontinuity

#### Derived terms

* bicontinuity
* business continuity planning
* continuity announcer
* continuity nod
* continuity series
* discontinuity
* equicontinuity
* hemicontinuity
* Lipschitz continuity
* noncontinuity
* retcon
* Scott continuity
* semicontinuity
* sequential continuity
* solution of continuity
* uniform continuity

#### Related terms

* continue
* continual
* continuousness