continuant, a. and n.
(kənˈtɪnjuːənt)
[a. F. continuant or L. continuānt- pr. pple. of continuāre.]
A. adj.
1. Continuing, persisting in time, enduring; remaining in force.
| 1610 Healey St. Aug. Citie of God v. xviii. (1620) 213 Romes Empire, so spacious and so continuant. 1642 Sir E. Dering Sp. on Relig. 21 Oct. x. E iij b, Whether this..Order be continuant or expired. 1660 Gauden Brounrig 117 The dispensations are..neither frequent nor continuant. 1933 Mind XLII. 72 Since there is nothing changeless in them, ‘things’ are not really continuant entities. |
2. Capable of a continuous sound: applied to certain consonants; see B. 1.
B. n.
1. A consonant of which the sound can be continued or prolonged, as opposed to a stop or check, in which the sound is produced by the explosion of a stoppage in some part of the oral cavity. Commonly applied to the sounds (f, v, θ, ð, s, z), etc. as contrasted with the stops (p, b, t, d), etc., but also including liquids and nasals.
| 1861 Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc. VIII. 373 When the continuant is a fluid consonant. 1887 Athenæum 13 Aug. 207/1 He retains the incorrect designation of the Teutonic continuants as ‘aspirates’..It seems to be implied that the Teutonic surd continuants changed directly into voiced stops, the theoretical intermediate stage of voiced continuants being ignored. |
2. Math. In Theory of Equations, ‘A determinant in which all the constituents vanish except those in the principal diagonal and two bordering minor diagonals’. Salmon Higher Alg. (1885) 18.
| 1873–4 Muir Proc. Royal Soc. Edin. 1881 Burnside & Panton Th. Equations xi. §129 (1885) 285 It appears that the quotient of any determinant by the one next below it in the series can be expressed as a continued fraction in terms of the given constituents. On account of this property determinants of the form here treated are called continuants. |
3. Philos. An existent, or something physical or psychical manifested in space and time, that retains its identity though changing its states or relations or when regarded as having different states or relations.
| 1917 W. E. Johnson in Proc. Arist. Soc. XVII. 431 We are thinking of a body X which continues to exist (and which may therefore be called a continuant), while the movement from A to B..is occurring. 1920 J. Laird Stud. Realism ii. 27 The physical things of common sense..are continuants in time. 1933 Mind XLII. 161 It is of the essence of Spinoza's theory that there are no finite continuants. |