[ad. L. continēnt-em (in senses I and II), subst. use of pr. pple. of continēre: see prec. and CONTAIN. It. continente mainland is in Florio, 1598; the Fr. is not in Cotgr. 1611.]
I. A containing agent or space.
1. That which contains or holds. Now rare or arch.
1541. R. Copland, Guydon’s Quest. Chirurg. The contenauntes that be without, fyrst ben the heares, than the lether or skynne, & than the flesshe.
1580. North, Plutarch (1676), 263. A Cylinder … containing a massie sphere, with an inscription, of the proportion, whereof the continent exceedeth the thing contained.
1590. Shaks., Mids. N., II. i. 92. Fogges … falling in the Land, Hath euerie petty Riuer made so proud, That they haue ouer-borne their Continents. Ibid. (1606), Ant. & Cl., IV. xiv. 40. Heart, once be stronger then thy Continent, Cracke thy fraile Case.
1615. T. Adams, White Devil, 62. The bagge is a continent to money and the world is a continent to the bagge.
1763. Churchill, Duellist, I. Poems II. 7. Earthquakes … Rive their concealing continent.
1868. G. Macdonald, Seaboard Parish, I. iv. 66. Let the money go to build decent houses for God’s poor, not to give them his holy bread and wine out of silver and gold and precious stones—stealing from the significance of the content by the meretricious grandeur of the continent.
1886. Stevenson, Dr. Jekyll, ii. (ed. 2), 26. Is it the mere radiance of a foul soul that thus transpires through … its clay continent?
b. fig. That which comprises or sums up; summary, sum and substance (sometimes not distinguishable from content, that which is contained). Now rare or arch.
1590. Greene, Neuer too late (1600), 23. They be women, and therefore the continents of all excellence.
1596. Shaks., Merch. V., III. ii. 131. Here’s the scroule, The continent, and summarie of my fortune. Ibid. (1604), Ham., V. ii. (Qo.). You shall find in him the continent of what part a gentleman would see.
1638. Laud, Conf. with Fisher, § 14. I did not say that the Book of Articles onely was the Continent of the Church of Englands publique Doctrine. She is not so narrow.
1643. Symmons, Loyal Subjects Beliefe, 61. Rebellion … is the continent and cause of all sin.
1788. trans. Swedenborg’s Wisd. Angels, III. § 216. 177. The Ultimate is the Complex, Continent and Basis of Things prior.
1869. W. Mitchell, Truthseeker, s.v. Change, 184. Nowhere do we find the power itself but only the continent of the power.
† 2. Containing area, space, or bulk; capacity; = CONTENT sb.1 5, 6. Obs.
a. 1608. Sir F. Vere, Comm. (1631), 124. The whole plot of continent sufficient to receive eight or nine hundred men.
1615. Markham, Eng. Housew., II. vii. (1668), 169. The quantity … should ever be answerable to the continent of your Cistern.
1660. R. Coke, Power & Subj., 78. There never was in so small a Continent so great a number of people.
1666. Ashmole, Diary (1774), 385. [The goblet] being of so large a continent, past the hands of thirty to pledge.
II. Continuous land, mainland.
† 3. A connected or continuous tract of land. Obs. (Cf. CONTINENT a. 5.)
1559. W. Cunningham, Cosmogr. Glasse, 113. Continens … is a portion of th’ Earth, which is not parted by the Seas asounder [margin has Continent].
1599. Hakluyt, Voy., II. Ded. 3. That large and fruitfull continent of the West Indies.
1609. P. Erondelle (title), Nova Francia: or the Description of that part of New France which is one Continent with Virginia.
1611. Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., VII. v. § 1. 214. [Kent] contained the Continent that lieth betwixt our East-Ocean and the Riuer Thames.
1657. S. W., Schism Dispatch’t, 541. A Primacy, that is, the highest in that continent [Ireland].
1667. Milton, P. L., X. 392. And made one Realm Hell and this World, one Realm, one Continent of easie thorough-fare.
1677. Earl Orrery, Art of War, 133. All the continents of Europe.
† b. The land as opposed to the water, etc.; ‘terra firma’; the earth. Obs.
1590. Marlowe, 2nd Pt. Tamburl., I. i. He That with the cannon shook Vienna wall, And made it dance upon the continent.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., III. v. 25. The carcas with the streame was carried downe, But th’ head fell backeward on the Continent.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., III. i. 47. Make Mountaines leuell, and the Continent melt it selfe Into the Sea.
† c. The ‘solid globe’ or orb of the sun or moon. Obs.
1601. Shaks., Twel. N., V. i. 278. All those sayings, will I … keepe as true in soule, As doth that Orbed Continent, the fire, That seuers day from night.
1667. Milton, P. L., V. 422. Nor doth the Moon no nourishment exhale From her moist Continent to higher Orbes.
† 4. esp. The main land, as distinguished from islands, islets, or peninsulas; mainland. Obs. exc. as in b, or when referring to one of the recognized continents of modern Geography: see 5.
1576. Fleming, Panopl. Epist., 284. Islanders covet the commodities of the continent, or firme ground.
1605. Verstegan, Dec. Intell., iv. (1628), 111. No more then men will euer carry foxes … out of our continent into the Ile of Wight.
1624. Donne, Devotions, etc., 416. Euery man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine.
a. 1661. Fuller, Worthies (1840) III. 506. A small fret (known by the peculiar name of Menai) sunderith it from the Welch continent.
1725. De Foe, Voy. round World (1840), 110. It is not known whether that country be an island or the continent.
1745. Eliza Haywood, Female Spect. (1748), III. 291. She cried out we were on the continent of Summatra.
1786. Gilpin, Mts. & Lakes Cumbrld., I. 137. The grandeur of each part of the continent is called in … to aid the insignificance of the island [in Windermere].
1808. Scott, Marm., III. xx. Threatening both continent and isle, Bute, Arran, Cunninghame, and Kyle.
1862. Ansted, Channel Isl., II. xii. (ed. 2), 301. They are also continental,—continental of the continent of France.
b. spec. The Continent: the mainland of Europe, as distinguished from the British Isles. (Orig. a specific use of 4; now commonly referred to 5.)
[1590. Sir J. Smyth, Disc. Weapons, 27 b. They are in the continent, where everie kingdome and state doth joyne one to another without anie partition of sea.]
1601. R. Johnson, Kingd. & Commw. (1603), 68. In these times the legions of Britanie were transported into the contenent.
c. 1654. Waller, Panegyr. Ld. Protector, xxvi. Holland … is content To be our outguard on the Continent.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 291. Men who had travelled much on the continent.
1873. ‘Mrs. Alexander,’ The Wooing o’t, xviii. She was going back to the Continent with her husband.
5. One of the main continuous bodies of land on the earth’s surface.
Formerly two continents were reckoned, the Old and the New; the former comprising Europe, Asia, and Africa, which form one continuous mass of land; the latter, North and South America, forming another. (These two continents are strictly islands, distinguished only by their extent.) Now it is usual to reckon four or five continents, Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, North and South; the great island of Australia is sometimes reckoned as another, and geographers have speculated on the existence of an Antarctic Continent.
1614. Brerewood, Enquiries (1635), 119. Europe, Afrique, and Asia … the south or Antarctique continent, etc.
1622–62. Heylin, Cosmogr., Introd. (1674), 18/2. A Continent is a great quantity of Land, not seperated by any Sea from the rest of the World, as the whole Continent of Europe, Asia, Africa.
1625. N. Carpenter, Geog. Del., II. vii. 115. Toward the North are placed the great continents of Europe, Asia, almost all Africa and the greatest part of America.
1727. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., The world is ordinarily divided into two grand continents: the old and the new.
1813. Butler, Geog., ii. The left or Western Hemisphere contains the two Continents of North and South America. Ibid., iv. New Holland, an iminense Island, which some geographers dignify with the appellation of another continent.
1856. Froude, Hist. Eng. (1858), I. i. 59. A new continent had risen up beyond the western sea.
1873. C. Robinson, N. S. Wales, 79. Sydney—once the capital of the Australian Continent … remains the metropolis of New South Wales.
b. transf. A continuous mass or extent of land of any kind, of ice, or the like.
1786. Gilpin, Mts. & Lakes Cumbrld., I. 187. Detached from this continent of precipice, if I may so speak, stands a rocky hill.
1862. Ruskin, Munera P. (1880), 173. The forests which now make continents of fruitful land pathless and poisonous.
c. fig.
1742. Young, Nt. Th., IV. 663. From nature’s continent, immensely wide, Immensely blest, this little isle of life … Divides us.
1843. Carlyle, Past & Pr. (1858), 78. Continents of parchment.
1878. R. W. Dale, Lect. Preach., iv. 90. The broad continent of the intellectual and moral life of man.
d. Comb., as continent-country, -island, one approaching in size to a continent.
1888. Pall Mall G., 23 Jan. In none of the great Indian Empires of the ages that are past, had any such union of the diverse peoples of this continent-country been effected.
† 6. Amer. Hist. Applied, during and immediately after the War of Independence, as a collective name for the revolting colonies (which ultimately became the United States) CF. CONTINENTAL a. 3.
1774. Gouv. Morris, in Sparks, Life & Writ. (1832), I. 27. Uniting the whole continent in one grand legislature.
1781. T. Jefferson, Corr. (1859), I. 304. There are some collections of forage and provisions belonging to the Continent, and some to the State.
c. 1784. S. Osgood, in Proc. Mass. Hist. Soc., V. 465. The plan for settling the accounts of the several states with the Continent.
III. [subst. use of CONTINENT a. 1.]
7. Eccl. Hist. = ENCRATITE.
1702. Echard, Eccl. Hist. (1710), 500. Justin’s scholar, Tatian … formed a new sect called by the name of Encratites, or Continents.
† 8. A continent person; a married person or widow under vow of continency. Obs. (Cf. penitent.)
1494. Will of Rogers (Somerset Ho.). I Pernell the continent of Criste & late wif of [etc.].
a. 1641. Bp. Mountagu, Acts & Mon. (1642), 72. With other holy Saints, Virgins, Confessors, Continents, and Ascetæ.
