# Limit vs Circumstance - What's the difference?

limit | circumstance |

## As nouns the difference between limit and circumstance

is that limit is limit (restriction) while circumstance is that which attends, or relates to, or in some way affects, a fact or event; an attendant thing or state of things.

## As a verb circumstance is

to place in a particular situation, especially with regard to money or other resources.

# limit

## English

### Etymology 1

From (etyl), from (etyl), from (etyl) .

#### Noun

(en noun)
• A restriction; a bound beyond which one may not go.
• There are several existing limits to executive power.
Two drinks is my limit tonight.
• * 1839 , (Charles Dickens), Nicholas Nickleby , chapter 21:
• It is the conductor which communicates to the inhabitants of regions beyond its limit ,
• * 1922 , , Ulysses , episode 17:
• 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,
• * 2012 March 6, Dan McCrum, Nicole Bullock and Guy Chazan, Financial Times , “Utility buyout loses power in shale gas revolution”:
• 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.
• (mathematics) 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).
• The sequence of reciprocals has zero as its limit.
• (mathematics) Any of several abstractions of this concept of limit.
• Category theory defines a very general concept of limit.
• (category theory) Given diagram F'' : ''J'' → ''C'', a cone (''L'', ''φ'') from ''L'' ∈ Ob(''C'') to ''F'' is the ''limit'' of ''F'' if it has the universal property that for any other cone (''N'', ''ψ'') from ''N'' ∈ Ob(''C'') to ''F'' there is a unique morphism ''u'' : ''N'' → ''L'' such that for all ''X'' ∈ Ob(''J ), $\phi_X \circ u = \psi_X$.
• (poker) Short for fixed limit.
• The final, utmost, or furthest point; the border or edge.
• the limit of a walk, of a town, or of a country
• * Alexander Pope
• As eager of the chase, the maid / Beyond the forest's verdant limits strayed.
• (obsolete) The space or thing defined by limits.
• * Shakespeare
• The archdeacon hath divided it / Into three limits very equally.
• (obsolete) That which terminates a period of time; hence, the period itself; the full time or extent.
• * Shakespeare
• the dateless limit of thy dear exile
• * Shakespeare
• The limit of your lives is out.
• (obsolete) A restriction; a check or curb; a hindrance.
• * Shakespeare
• I prithee, give no limits to my tongue.
• (logic, metaphysics) A determining feature; a distinguishing characteristic.
• ##### Synonyms
* (restriction) bound, boundary, limitation, restriction
##### Derived terms
* age limit * central limit theorem * city limits * elastic limit * in the limit * limit down * limit up * limitation * limitless * lower limit * outer limit * the sky is the limit * to the limit * time limit * unlimited * upper limit
##### Descendants
* German: (l)

* bound * function

(-)
• (poker) Being a fixed limit game.
• ### Etymology 2

From (etyl) ; see noun.

#### Verb

(en verb)
• To restrict; not to allow to go beyond a certain bound.
• *
• [The Chinese government] has jailed environmental activists and is planning to limit the power of judicial oversight by handing a state-approved body a monopoly over bringing environmental lawsuits.
• (mathematics) To have a limit in a particular set.
• (obsolete) To beg, or to exercise functions, within a certain limited region.
• ##### Synonyms
* (restrict) cap; restrict; withstrain

# circumstance

## English

### Alternative forms

* circumstaunce

### Noun

(en noun)
• That which attends, or relates to, or in some way affects, a fact or event; an attendant thing or state of things.
• * Washington Irving
• The circumstances are well known in the country where they happened.
• * {{quote-book, year=1905, author=
• , title= , chapter=1 citation , passage=“The story of this adoption is, of course, the pivot round which all the circumstances of the mysterious tragedy revolved. Mrs. Yule had an only son, namely, William, to whom she was passionately attached ; but, like many a fond mother, she had the desire of mapping out that son's future entirely according to her own ideas. […]”}}
• An event; a fact; a particular incident.
• The sculptor had in his thoughts the conqoeror weeping for new worlds, or the like circumstances in history.
• * 1834 , David Crockett, A Narrative of the Life of , Nebraska 1987, p. 20:
• Then another circumstance happened, which made a lasting impression on my memory, though I was but a small child.
• Circumlocution; detail.
• * Shakespeare
• So without more circumstance at all / I hold it fit that we shake hands and part.
• Condition in regard to worldly estate; state of property; situation; surroundings.