Continuous

How to spell continuous

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce continuous

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does continuous mean?

1. adjectiveForming an unbroken whole; happening or extending without interruption in time or space.

Continuous in a sentence

• The factory runs in continuous operation, day and night, with no shutdown.

• A continuous line of traffic stretched from the bridge to the motorway exit.

Where does continuous come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin adjective continuus, which meant 'uninterrupted' or 'joined together without a gap'. That adjective was built on the verb continere, 'to hold together', formed from con- meaning 'together' and tenere meaning 'to hold'. The image at the root is therefore of something that holds together in one unbroken stretch, with no break in the chain. English took the word in during the early 1600s, alongside its close cousin 'continual', and the pair have been quietly confused ever since: in careful usage 'continuous' means unbroken in space or time, while 'continual' means repeated again and again. The same tenere root still sits inside everyday relatives such as 'contain', 'tenant' and 'tenacious', all of which involve holding. The spelling trap lives in the unstressed ending, where the '-uous' is easy to garble or to drop a letter from.

How the word is built

• con- (together)
• tinu- (from Latin tenere: to hold)
• -ous (adjective suffix, full of)