What is the difference between contiguous and continuous?
contiguous | continuous |
connected; touching; abutting
adjacent; neighbouring/neighboring
* 1730–1774 , , Introductory to Switzerland
* 1835 , William Scoresby, Memorials of the Sea (page 59)
connecting without a break
* 1886 , Frank Hamilton Cushing, A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuñi Culture Growth :
Without break, cessation, or interruption; without intervening time.
* 1847 , , Ticknor and Fields (1854), page 90:
Without intervening space; continued; protracted; extended.
(botany) Not deviating or varying from uniformity; not interrupted; not joined or articulated.
(analysis, of a function) Such that, for every x'' in the domain, for each small open interval ''D'' about ''f''(''x''), there's an interval containing ''x'' whose image is in ''D .
(mathematics, more generally, of a function) Such that each open set in the range has an open preimage.
(grammar) Expressing an ongoing action or state.
As adjectives the difference between contiguous and continuous
is that contiguous is connected; touching; abutting while continuous is without break, cessation, or interruption; without intervening time.contiguous
English
Adjective
(-)- Though poor the peasant’s hut, his feasts though small,
- He sees his little lot the lot of all;
- Sees no contiguous palace rear its head
- To shame the meanness of his humble shed;
- the usual quietness of the day, with us, was broken in upon by the shout of success from the pursuing boats, followed by vehement respondings from the contiguous ship.
- The forty-eight contiguous states.
- Supposing three such houses to be contiguous to a central one, each separated from the latter by a straight wall.
Derived terms
* contiguousnessSee also
* conterminousReferences
* *continuous
English
Adjective
(-)- a continuous current of electricity
- he can hear its continuous murmur
- a continuous line of railroad
- Each continuous function from the real line to the rationals is constant, since the rationals are totally disconnected.
