continual, a.
(kənˈtɪnjuːəl)
Forms: 4 continuel, -ell, -ele, -eel, (contenuel, -tinewel, -tynwel), 4–6 contynuel, -ell(e, -al, -all, 4–7 continuall, 6 -alle, 6– continual.
[ME., a. OF. continuel (12th c.), f. L. continu-us: see -al1.]
1. Always going on, incessant, perpetual; i.e. continuing without any intermission, continuous (in time); or less strictly, repeated with brief intermissions, very frequent. (Of actions or states.)
| c 1340 Hampole Prose Tr. 24 Gret excercyice of body and continuell trauaile of the spirit. 1387 Trevisa Higden (Rolls) VII. 5 Þerof is ȝit contynual strif betwene hem of York and of Caunturbury. 1388 Wyclif Luke xi. 8 For his contynuel axyng he schal ryse, and ȝyue to hym. c 1400 Mandeville (Roxb.) xvii. 79 Grete calde and continuele frost. 1549 Bk. Com. Prayer, Collect 16th Sund. after Trin., Lord..let thy continual pitie clense and defende thy congregacion. 1615 Crooke Body of Man 422 The cure of continuall yawning. 1711 Budgell Spect. No. 150 ¶1 The continual Ridicule which his Habit and Dress afforded to the Beaus of Rome. 1869 Phillips Vesuv. iii. 58 Eleven months of disquiet..one almost continual eruption. |
b. Regularly recurring; kept up at stated times or intervals without interruption of regularity; recurring every time. arch.
| ? a 1500 Wyclif's Wicket (1828) 2 [He] shall defyle the sanctuarye, and he shall take awaye the continuall sacryfyce. 1514 Barclay Cyt. & Uplondyshm. (Percy Soc.) p. xlviii, One service of them [dishes] continuall Allayeth pleasure. 1630 R. Johnson's Kingd. & Commw. 585 Continuall victory maketh leaders insolent, souldiers mutinous. 1862 Ruskin Munera P. (1880) 36 The continual payment of the excess of value. |
† c. Law. continual claim: a claim formally reiterated within statutory intervals in order that it might not be deemed to be abandoned. Obs.
| 1574 tr. Littleton's Tenures 88 a, In case a man be disseised, and the disseisy maketh continuall claime to the tenementes in the life of the disseisoure. 1628 Coke On Litt. 250. 1641 Termes de la Ley 80 Continuall claime is where a man hath right to enter..and hee dare not enter for feare of death or beating, but approacheth as nigh as he dare, and maketh claime thereto within the yeare and day before the death of him that hath the Lands. 1670 Blount Law Dict., Continual Claim, is a claim made from time to time, within every year and day, to land or other thing, which in some respect we cannot attain without danger. 1848 Wharton Law Lex., Continual claim, abolished by 3 & 4 Wm. IV, c. 27 §11. |
† 2. transf. Of persons and things: That is always in some (specified) position, engaged in some (specified) action, etc.; continually existing or acting; constant, perpetual. Obs.
| 1462 Paston Lett. No. 446 II. 97 Yore contynwel servaunt and bedeman. 1535 E. Harvel in Ellis Orig. Lett. ii. 115. II. 71 Mr. Pole is continual in writing of his work. 1611 Bible Num. iv. 7 The continual bread shalbe thereon. 1624 Capt. Smith Virginia i. 13 Our continuall Pilot mistaking Virginia for Cape Fear. 1630 R. Johnson's Kingd. & Commw. 585 At the charge to maintaine continuall companies. a 1864 Hawthorne Septimius iii. (1879) 74 Beating it down with the pressure of his continual feet. |
† 3. Of diseases: Chronic, not intermittent. Cf. continent a. 7. Obs.
| 1529 in Vicary's Anat. (1888) App. xiv. 252 Withoute contynuell Diseases. 1574 tr. Littleton's Tenures 24 a, A greate and continual infirmitie. 1695 tr. Colbatch's New Lt. Chirurg. put out 25 A Fever either intermitting or continual. 1706 Phillips (ed. Kersey), Continual Feaver, is that which sometimes remits, or abates, but never perfectly intermits. 1725 N. Robinson Th. Physick 259 Of the Cure of simple, continual Fevers. 1751 R. Brookes Pract. Physic. (1758) II. 317 [Pulse] full, great, quick [denotes] Hot fit of an ague, continual fever. |
† 4. Everlasting, permanent. Obs. rare.
| 1610 Healey St. Aug. Citie of God xii. xii, Nothing that hath an extreame is continuall. |
† 5. Continuous in space or substance; unbroken, uninterrupted, having no interstices. Obs.
| 1570 Billingsley Euclid xi. def. i. 312 There are three kindes of continuall quantitie, a line, a superficies, and a solide or body. 1581 Savile Tacitus' Agricola (1622) 188 A deepe masse of continuall sea. 1662 J. Chandler Van Helmont's Oriat. 53, I conceive, that the earth in the beginning, was con-tinuall or holding together, and undivided. 1715 Leoni tr. Palladio's Archit. (1742) II. 36 A continual Embasement round a Temple. |
† b. Continuous with something else; forming one connected whole; = continent a. 6 b. Obs.
| 1578 Banister Hist. Man v. 71 The guttes are to this ventricle continuall. 1623 Donne Serm. (1640) 178 They [Faith and Reason] are not Continuall but they are contiguous. 1652 Needham tr. Selden's Mare Cl. 86 The Provinces of Asia and Europe became in a civil sens, either continual or contiguous. |
† c. Forming a continuous series, i.e. one whose constituents recur at regular intervals. continual proportion, continual proportionals (Math.): = continued proportion, proportionals. Obs.
| 1557 Recorde Whetst. C ij b, When the first nomber is referred to the seconde, and that seconde to the thirde [as 5 is to 15, so is 15 to 45]: the proportion is called continualle. 1597 Hooker Eccl. Pol. v. lvii. §6 Christ Jesus..being by continual degrees the finisher of our life. 1753 Chambers Cycl. Supp., Continual proportionals, when..the first is to the second, as the second to the third, etc. |