continuity
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˌkɒn.tɪˈnjuː.ɪ.ti/
ipa: /ˌkɑn.tɪˈn(j)u.ə.ti/
ipa: [ˌkɑn.tɪˈn(j)u.ə.ɾi]
note: Wales, Ottawa Valley
ipa: /ˌkɒn.tɪˈnɪu̯.ɪ.ti/
note: Indic
ipa: /kəɳʈɪˈnjʊ(wɪ)ʈi/
note: Indic
ipa: /ˈkɔɳʈɪnjʊ(wɪ)ʈi/
rhymes: -uːɪti
Forms: form: continuities
Etymology: Borrowed from Middle French continuité, from Latin continuitas. By surface analysis, continu(e) + -ity.
Senses: examples: text: While troubleshooting the heating and cooling system, we found a lack of continuity in a circuit that is normally closed.
text: Considerable continuity of attention is needed to read German philosophy.
text: 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.
ref: 1946 March and April, “The Why and The Wherefore: "Fitted" and "Piped" Wagons”, in Railway Magazine, page 128:
text: 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.
ref: 1959 March, “The 2,500 h.p. electric locomotives for the Kent Coast electrification”, in Trains Illustrated, page 123:
text: With the election of Cardinal Robert Prevost as Pope Leo XIV, the College of Cardinals sent a clear message of continuity with the reformist agenda of his predecessor, Pope Francis.
ref: 2025 May 8, David Gibson, “The New Pope Might Be Something Like the Old Pope”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
glosses: Lack of interruption or disconnection; the quality of being continuous in space or time.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1911, William Anthony Granville, Elements of the Differential and Integral Calculus:
topics: mathematics
sciences
glosses: A characteristic property of a continuous function.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 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):
topics: human-sciences
linguistics
narratology
sciences
glosses: A narrative device in episodic fiction where previous and/or future events in a series of stories are accounted for in present stories.
topics: broadcasting
film
media
television
glosses: Consistency between multiple shots depicting the same scene but possibly filmed on different occasions.
topics: broadcasting
media
radio
television
glosses: The announcements and messages inserted by the broadcaster between programmes.
Synonyms: word: continence
word: continuity
word: continuousness
word: flow
word: ongoingness
word: uninterruptedness
Hyponyms: word: endlessness
word: intactness
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