Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Continuous

Con·tin′u·ous (kŏn·tĭn′ū·ŭs), a. [L. continuus, fr. continere to hold together. See Continent.] 1. Without break, cessation, or interruption; without intervening space or time; uninterrupted; unbroken; continual; unceasing; constant; continued; protracted; extended; as, a continuous line of railroad; a continuous current of electricity.

he can hear its continuous murmur. Longfellow.

2. (Bot.) Not deviating or varying from uninformity; not interrupted; not joined or articulated.

Continuous brake (Railroad), a brake which is attached to each car a train, and can be caused to operate in all the cars simultaneously from a point on any car or on the engine. — Continuous impost. See Impost.

Syn. — Continuous, Continual. Continuous is the stronger word, and denotes that the continuity or union of parts is absolute and uninterrupted; as, a continuous sheet of ice; a continuous flow of water or of argument. So Daniel Webster speaks of "a continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England." Continual, in most cases, marks a close and unbroken succession of things, rather than absolute continuity. Thus we speak of continual showers, implying a repetition with occasional interruptions; we speak of a person as liable to continual calls, or as subject to continual applications for aid, etc. See Constant.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.