discrete
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /dɪˈskɹiːt/
homophone: discreet
rhymes: -iːt
Forms: form: more discrete
form: most discrete
Etymology: From Old French discret, from Latin discrētus, past participle of discernō (“divide”), from dis- + cernō (“sift”). Doublet of discreet.
Senses: examples: text: a government with three discrete divisions
text: There are two laws discrete, / Not reconciled,— / Law for man, and law for thing; / The last builds town and fleet, / But it runs wild, / And doth the man unking.
ref: a. 1856, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Ode, Inscribed to W. H. Channing”, in Poems, 5th edition, Boston: Pillips, Sampson & Co., published 1856, page 120:
text: But analysis, penetrating beneath the fact of Sense in search of its ideal factors, declares that this mass of marble is something very different from what it appears : its seeming continuity is broken up into discrete molecules, separated from each other as the stars in the Milky Way are separated ; and its seeming homogeneity is resolved into heterogeneous substances, which are themselves in all probability composite.
ref: 1875, George Henry Lewes, “The Problem Stated”, in Problems of Life and Mind, volume II, London: Trübner & Co., page 33:
text: It's not that there aren't measurable, quantifiable differences between all these categories we impose upon things, it's just that for the most part they fit not into discrete units, but into a continuum.
ref: 2017, Adam Rutherford, A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, The Experiment, →ISBN, pages 254–255:
glosses: Separate; distinct; individual; non-continuous.
glosses: That can be perceived individually, not as connected to, or part of, something else.
examples: text: a discrete sum
topics: mathematics
sciences
glosses: Consisting of or permitting only distinct values drawn from a finite, countable set.
topics: business
electrical
electrical-engineering
electricity
electromagnetism
energy
engineering
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
physics
glosses: Having separate electronic components, such as individual diodes, transistors and resistors, as opposed to integrated circuitry.
topics: audio
electrical-engineering
engineering
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
glosses: Having separate and independent channels of audio, as opposed to multiplexed stereo or quadraphonic, or other multi-channel sound.
topics: mathematics
sciences
topology
glosses: Having each singleton subset open: said of a topological space or a topology.
examples: text: "I resign my life, but not my honour" is a discrete proposition.
glosses: Disjunctive; containing a disjunctive or discretive clause.
Derived terms: bidiscrete
discrete binning
discrete category
discrete choice analysis
discrete component
discrete Fourier transform
discretely
discrete manufacturing
discrete math
discrete mathematics
discrete metric
discreteness
discrete picking
discrete random variable
discrete set
discrete-time
discrete time
discrete-time Markov chain
discrete-time signal
discrete topology
discrete valuation
discrete valuation ring
discrete variable
discretisation
discretize
nondiscrete
non-discrete
prodiscrete
pseudodiscrete
quasidiscrete
semidiscrete
ultradiscrete