/ˈlɪm.ɪt/, /ˈlɪm.ɪʈ/, /lɪmʈ/
OriginFrom Middle English limit, from Old French limit, from Latin līmes (“a cross-path or balk between fields, hence a boundary, boundary line or wall, any path or road, border, limit”). Displaced native Old English ġemǣre. Doublet of limes.
- A restriction; a bound beyond which one may not go.
“There are several existing limits to executive power.”
“Two drinks is my limit tonight.”
“It is the conductor which communicates to the inhabitants of regions beyond its limit […]”
- 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.”
- Any of several abstractions of this concept of limit.
“Category theory defines a very general concept of limit.”
- The cone of a diagram through which any other cone of that same diagram can factor uniquely.
- Fixed limit.
- The final, utmost, or furthest point; the border or edge.
“the limit of a walk, of a town, or of a country”
“As eager of the chase, the maid / Beyond the forest's verdant limits strayed.”
“"Like many other large resorts, the town operated electric tramways, with open-topped cars. The journey down the steep incline to the harbour must have been exhilarating at times, testing the brakes o”
- obsoleteThe space or thing defined by limits.
“The archdeacon hath divided it / Into three limits very equally.”
- obsoleteThat which terminates a period of time; hence, the period itself; the full time or extent.
“the dateless limit of thy dear exile”
“The limit of your lives is out.”
- obsoleteA restriction; a check or curb; a hindrance.
“I prithee, give no limits to my tongue.”
- A determining feature; a distinguishing characteristic.
- The first group of riders to depart in a handicap race.
- colloquialA person who is exasperating, intolerable, astounding, etc.
“Englehorn looked at his employer in incredulous admiration. ‘You’re the limit,’ he declared.”
- abbreviation, alt-of, ellipsisEllipsis of harmonic limit.
- not-comparableBeing a fixed limit game.
- transitiveTo restrict; to circumscribe; not to allow to go beyond a certain bound, to set boundaries.
“We need to limit the power of the executive.”
“I'm limiting myself to two drinks tonight.”
“[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.”
- intransitiveTo have a limit in a particular set.
“The sequence limits on the point a.”
- obsoleteTo beg, or to exercise functions, within a certain limited region.
Formslimits(plural) · limits(present, singular, third-person) · limiting(participle, present) · limited(participle, past) · limited(past)