limit
Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ˈlɪmɪt/
  • (India) IPA: /ˈlɪmɪt/, /ˈlɪmt/
Noun

limit (plural limits)

  1. A restriction; a bound beyond which one may not go.
    There are several existing limits to executive power.
    Two drinks is my limit tonight.
    • 1839, Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, chapter 21:
      It is the conductor which communicates to the inhabitants of regions beyond its limit […]
    • 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses, episode 17:
      Ever he would wander, selfcompelled, to the extreme limit of his cometary orbit, beyond the fixed stars and variable suns and telescopic planets, astronomical waifs and strays, to the extreme boundary of space […]
    • 2012 March 6, Dan McCrum, Nicole Bullock and Guy Chazan, Financial Times, “Utility buyout loses power in shale gas revolution” ↗:
      At the time, there seemed to be no limit to the size of ever-larger private equity deals, with banks falling over each other to arrange financing on generous terms and to invest money from their own private equity arms.
  2. (mathematics) 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.
  3. (mathematics) Any of several abstractions of this concept of limit.
    Category theory defines a very general concept of limit.
  4. (category theory) The cone of a diagram through which any other cone of that same diagram can factor uniquely.
    Synonyms: inverse limit, projective limit
    hyponyms en
  5. (poker) Fixed limit.
  6. The final, utmost, or furthest point; the border or edge.
    the limit of a walk, of a town, or of a country
    • 1713, Alexander Pope, Windsor Forest:
      As eager of the chase, the maid / Beyond the forest's verdant limits strayed.
  7. (obsolete) The space or thing defined by limits.
    • c. 1597, William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act III, scene i]:
      The archdeacon hath divided it / Into three limits very equally.
  8. (obsolete) That which terminates a period of time; hence, the period itself; the full time or extent.
    • 1595 December 9 (first known performance)​, William Shakespeare, “The life and death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act I, scene iii]:
      the dateless limit of thy dear exile
    • c. 1593, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act III, scene iii]:
      The limit of your lives is out.
  9. (obsolete) A restriction; a check or curb; a hindrance.
    • c. 1591–1592, William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act II, scene ii]:
      I prithee, give no limits to my tongue.
  10. (logic, metaphysics) A determining feature; a distinguishing characteristic.
  11. (cycling) The first group of riders to depart in a handicap race.
  12. (colloquial, as "the limit") A person who is exasperating, intolerable, astounding, etc.
Synonyms Translations Translations Translations Adjective

limit (not comparable)

  1. (poker) Being a fixed limit game.
Verb

limit (limits, present participle limiting; past and past participle limited)

  1. (transitive) To restrict; 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.
  2. (mathematics, intransitive) To have a limit in a particular set.
    The sequence limits on the point a.
  3. (obsolete) To beg, or to exercise functions, within a certain limited region.
    a limiting friar
Synonyms Translations


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