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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Continuous \Con*tin"u*ous\, adjective [L. continuus, fr. continere to hold together. See {Continent}.]
1. Without break, cessation, or interruption; without intervening space or time; uninterrupted; unbroken; continual; unceasing; constant; continued; protracted; extended; as, a continuous line of railroad; a continuous current of electricity.
he can hear its continuous murmur. --Longfellow.
2. (Bot.) Not deviating or varying from uninformity; not interrupted; not joined or articulated.
{Continuous brake} (Railroad), a brake which is attached to each car a train, and can be caused to operate in all the cars simultaneously from a point on any car or on the engine.
{Continuous impost}. See {Impost}.
Syn: {Continuous}, {Continual}.
Usage: Continuous is the stronger word, and denotes that the continuity or union of parts is absolute and uninterrupted; as, a continuous sheet of ice; a continuous flow of water or of argument. So Daniel Webster speaks of ''a continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England.'' Continual, in most cases, marks a close and unbroken succession of things, rather than absolute continuity. Thus we speak of continual showers, implying a repetition with occasional interruptions; we speak of a person as liable to continual calls, or as subject to continual applications for aid, etc. See {Constant}.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
continuous
adjective
1: continuing in time or space without interruption; "a continuous rearrangement of electrons in the solar atoms results in the emission of light"- James Jeans; "a continuous bout of illness lasting six months"; "lived in continuous fear"; "a continuous row of warehouses"; "a continuous line has no gaps or breaks in it"; "moving midweek holidays to the nearest Monday or Friday allows uninterrupted work weeks" [syn: {uninterrupted}] [ant: {discontinuous}]
2: of a function or curve; extending without break or irregularity [ant: {discontinuous}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
133 Moby Thesaurus words for "continuous": abiding, accordant, ageless, alike, articulated, automatic, balanced, catenated, ceaseless, chronological, coeternal, concatenated, connected, consecutive, consistent, consonant, constant, continual, continued, continuing, correspondent, cyclical, dateless, direct, durational, durative, endless, equable, equal, eternal, eterne, even, ever-being, ever-durable, ever-during, ever-recurring, everlasting, everliving, featureless, flat, frequent, gapless, haunting, homogeneous, immediate, immemorial, immutable, incessant, indefatigable, indestructible, infinite, interminable, invariable, joined, jointless, lasting, level, linked, measured, mechanical, methodic, monolithic, monotonous, never-ceasing, never-ending, nonstop, nonterminating, nonterminous, of a piece, olamic, ordered, orderly, perdurable, perennial, periodic, permanent, perpetual, persistent, reappearing, recurrent, recurring, regular, remaining, repetitive, returning, revenant, robotlike, round-the-clock, running, seamless, sempiternal, sequent, sequential, serial, serried, smooth, stable, staying, steadfast, steady, sticking, straight, sustained, systematic, temporal, thematic, thick-coming, tight, timeless, twenty-four-hour, ubiquitous, unbroken, unceasing, unchangeable, unchanged, unchanging, undeviating, undifferentiated, undiversified, undying, unending, uniform, unintermitted, unintermittent, unintermitting, uninterrupted, unrelieved, unremitting, unruffled, unstopped, unvaried, unvarying, without end
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