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ontinuous; uninterupted connection or succession; close union of parts; cohesion; as, the continuity of fibers. Grew. The sight would be tired, if it were attracted by a continuity of glittering objects. Dryden. Law of continuity (Math. & Physics), the principle that nothing passes from one state to another without pas…

Want of continuity or cohesion; disunion of parts. "Discontinuity of surface." Boyle.

To interrupt; to destroy the continuity of; to dissolve or terminate; as, to break silence; to break one's sleep; to break one's journey. Go, release them, Ariel; My charms I'll break, their senses I'll restore. Shak.

The pellicle which forms over a wound or breach of continuity and completes the process of healing in the latter, and which subsequently contracts and becomes white, forming the scar.

Uninterrupted course; continuity. [Obs.] Ayliffe.

A holding together; continuity. [Obs.] Bacon.

A solution of continuity; division; separation of parts.

act of discontinuing, or the state of being discontinued; want of continued connection or continuity; breaking off; cessation; interruption; as, a discontinuance of conversation or intercourse; discontinuance of a highway or of travel.

Breach or interruption of continuity; separation of parts in a connected series; discontinuance. Upon any discontinuation of parts, made either by bubbles or by shaking the glass, the whole mercury falls. Sir I. Newton.

To lose continuity or cohesion of parts; to be disrupted or broken off. Bacon.

Exhibiting a dissolution of continuity; gaping. "Discontinuous wound." Milton. Discontinuous function (Math.), a function which for certain values or between certain values of the variable does not vary continuously as the variable increases. The discontinuity may, for example, consist of an abrupt change in the value…

To break the continuity of; to disconnect; to disunite; to sunder; to loosen; to undo; to separate. Nothing can dissolve us. Shak. Down fell the duke, his joints dissolved asunder. Fairfax. For one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another. The Declaration of Independence.…

To arrange in exact continuity of line, as soldiers; commonly to adjust to a straight line and at proper distance; to align; as, to dress the ranks.

To interrupt the continuity of (rock strata) by displacement along a plane of fracture; -- chiefly used in the p.p.; as, the coal beds are badly faulted.

A crack or breach; a gap or fissure; a defect of continuity or cohesion; as, a flaw in a knife or a vase. This heart Shall break into a hundered thousand flaws. Shak.

The quality or property of being in fragnebts, or broken pieces, incompleteness; want of continuity. G. Eliot.

al functions (below). -- Continuous function, a quantity that has no interruption in the continuity of its real values, as the variable changes between any specified limits. -- Discontinuous function. See under Discontinuous. -- Elliptic functions, a large and important class of functions, so called because one of t…

e united by a a mere juxtaposition. Glanvill. Juxtaposition is a very unsafe criterion of continuity. Hare.

The death of a part by molecular disintegration and without loss of continuity, as in the processes of degeneration and atrophy. Virchow.

A dislocation of a lead, destroying continuity. Knight.