limit
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈlɪm.ɪt/
note: Indic
ipa: /lɪm(ɪ)ʈ/
rhymes: -ɪmɪt
Forms: form: limits
Etymology: From Middle English limit, from Old French limit, from Latin līmes (“a cross-path or balk between fields, hence a boundary, boundary line or wall, any path or road, border, limit”). Displaced native Old English ġemǣre. Doublet of limes.
Senses: examples: text: There are several existing limits to executive power.
text: Two drinks is my limit tonight.
text: It is the conductor which communicates to the inhabitants of regions beyond its limit […]
ref: 1838 March – 1839 October, Charles Dickens, chapter 21, in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1839, →OCLC:
text: Ever he would wander, selfcompelled, to the extreme limit of his cometary orbit, beyond the fixed stars and variable suns and telescopic planets, astronomical waifs and strays, to the extreme boundary of space […]
ref: 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 17]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:
text: At the time, there seemed to be no limit to the size of ever-larger private equity deals, with banks falling over each other to arrange financing on generous terms and to invest money from their own private equity arms.
ref: 2012 March 6, Dan McCrum, Nicole Bullock and Guy Chazan, Financial Times, “Utility buyout loses power in shale gas revolution”
glosses: A restriction; a bound beyond which one may not go.
examples: text: The sequence of reciprocals has zero as its limit.
topics: mathematics
sciences
glosses: A value to which a sequence converges. Equivalently, the common value of the upper limit and the lower limit of a sequence: if the upper and lower limits are different, then the sequence has no limit (i.e., does not converge).
examples: text: Category theory defines a very general concept of limit.
topics: mathematics
sciences
glosses: Any of several abstractions of this concept of limit.
topics: category-theory
computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
synonyms: inverse limit
projective limit
hyponyms: terminal object
categorical product
pullback
equalizer
identity morphism
glosses: The cone of a diagram through which any other cone of that same diagram can factor uniquely.
topics: card-games
poker
glosses: Fixed limit.
examples: text: the limit of a walk, of a town, or of a country
text: As eager of the chase, the maid / Beyond the forest's verdant limits strayed.
ref: 1713, [Alexander] Pope, Windsor-Forest. […], London: […] Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC:
text: "Like many other large resorts, the town operated electric tramways, with open-topped cars. The journey down the steep incline to the harbour must have been exhilarating at times, testing the brakes on the vehicles to the limit."
ref: 2021 September 8, Dr Joseph Brennan, “Electric tramways at the heart of our seaside story”, in RAIL, number 939, page 59:
glosses: The final, utmost, or furthest point; the border or edge.
examples: text: The archdeacon hath divided it / Into three limits very equally.
ref: c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:
glosses: The space or thing defined by limits.
examples: text: the dateless limit of thy dear exile
ref: 1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]:
text: The limit of your lives is out.
ref: c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:
glosses: That which terminates a period of time; hence, the period itself; the full time or extent.
examples: text: I prithee, give no limits to my tongue.
ref: c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]:
glosses: A restriction; a check or curb; a hindrance.
topics: human-sciences
logic
mathematics
philosophy
sciences
qualifier: metaphysics
glosses: A determining feature; a distinguishing characteristic.
topics: cycling
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: The first group of riders to depart in a handicap race.
examples: text: Englehorn looked at his employer in incredulous admiration. ‘You’re the limit,’ he declared.
ref: 1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 63:
glosses: A person who is exasperating, intolerable, astounding, etc.
raw_tags: as "the limit"
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: Ellipsis of harmonic limit.
Synonyms: sense: restriction
word: bound
sense: restriction
word: boundary
sense: restriction
word: limitation
sense: restriction
word: restriction
sense: restriction
word: threshold
sense: restriction
word: rim
Derived terms: age limit
antilimit
Armstrong limit
Atterberg limit
Betz limit
blowdown limit
Bremermann's limit
cash limit
central limit theorem
Chandrasekhar limit
Chu-Harrington limit
city limit(s)
colimit
credit limit
Deutsch limit
diffraction limit
direct limit
dizzy limit
Eddington limit
elastic limit
Gabrielli-von Karman limit
Gabrielli-von Kármán limit
giddy limit
Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin limit
GZK limit
Hayashi limit
Hayflick limit
in the limit
Karman limit
Kármán limit
Landauer limit
limital
limitarian
limitation
limit bid
limit break
limit cardinal
limit case
limit comparison test
limit cycle
limit down
limit inferior
limitive
limitless
limit of positive stability
limit order
limit ordinal
limit point
limit screw
limit situation
limit superior
limit switch
limit up
lintel
lower limit
McDowell limit
McQ limit
McQuary limit
no limit
outer limit
overlimit
pot limit
push the limit
quantum limit
rate limit
Roche limit
Shannon limit
Shockley-Queisser limit
sky's-the-limit
Sparrow's resolution limit
speed limit
spread limit
sublimit
superlimit
term-limit
term limit
the sky is the limit
the sky's the limit
ticket time limit
time-limit
time limit
to the limit
unlimit
unlimited
upper limit
von Karman limit
von Kármán limit
wonderful limit