Continual

How to spell continual

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce continual

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does continual mean?

1. adjectiveHappening repeatedly, with short breaks in between, over a long period.

Continual in a sentence

• The continual interruptions made it hard to finish the report.

• Residents complained about the continual noise from the building site next door.

Where does continual come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin continuus, meaning 'uninterrupted' or 'hanging together', which was built on the verb tenere, 'to hold', with the prefix con- adding force. From continuus, late Latin formed continualis, and that passed into Old French as continuel before reaching English in the 1300s. The idea behind the spelling is one of things being held tightly together in a sequence, which is why the same tenere root surfaces in relatives such as 'contain', 'tenant', and 'tenacious'. In careful modern usage 'continual' tends to mean repeated again and again with breaks in between, whereas its close cousin 'continuous' means without any break at all, and that subtle split is the main reason writers hesitate over which one to choose. The trap in spelling it is the -ual ending, since the unstressed vowel cluster is easy to reduce to a plain -al.

How the word is built

• con- (intensive: thoroughly)
• -tinu- (from Latin tenere: to hold)
• -al (adjective suffix)