continuum

plural continuums · plural continua

1. A continuous series or whole, no part of which is noticeably different from its adjacent parts, although the ends or extremes of it are very different from each other.

   Near-synonym: spectrum

   2 more examples

   So, the white line implies Blacklessness and the black background implies Whitelessness – that is, once the white line, a continuum, has emerged from blackness, also a continuum, and the two continua engage in an “inter-penetrative” (Buddhist term) process.

   2014, Torkild Thellefsen, Bent Sorensen, Charles Sanders Peirce in His Own Words

   In fact, the influence of signage in a certain area may exist anywhere on a continuum from profoundly effective to utterly trivial or completely insignificant, irrespective of the intent motivating the signs.

   2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, →DOI, page 11

   Synonyms: spectrum

2. A continuous extent.

   A doorknob of whatever roundish shape is effectively a continuum of levers, with the axis of the latching mechanism—known as the spindle—being the fulcrum about which the turning takes place.

   2012 March 28, Henry Petroski, “Opening Doors”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, pages 112–3

3. mathematicsThe nondenumerable set of real numbers; more generally, any compact connected metric space.

   Synonyms: ℝ

4. entertainmentA touch-sensitive strip, similar to an electronic standard musical keyboard, except that the note steps are ¹⁄₁₀₀ of a semitone, and so are not separately marked.