Sentence:  But the work of von Staudt, Fano, and Veblen led even to the construction of <WSD>"finite geometries</WSD>" having only finitely many points and lines. Originally having only incidence relations, these <WSD>finite geometries</WSD> have been extensively developed through the introduction of suitable axioms of order and congruence by Järnefelt and Kustaanheimo, who have proposed their use in physics to solve certain paradoxes due apparently to the use of continuous variables. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  Any geometric system that has only a finite number of points.