a. 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 -AL.]
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. Maundev. (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. trans. 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 Felton, iii. (1879), 74. Beating it down with the pressure of his continual feet.
† 3. Of diseases: Chronic, not intermittent. Cf. CONTINENT a. 6. Obs.
1529. in Vicary’s Anat. (1888), App. xiv. 252. Withoute contynuell Diseases.
1574. trans. Littleton’s Tenures, 24 a. A greate and continual infirmitie.
1695. trans. 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, trans. Palladio’s Archit. (1742), II. 36. A continual Embasement round a Temple.
† b. Continuous with something else; forming one connected whole; = CONTINENT a. 5 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, trans. 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, 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.
