Pl. continua. [L.; neuter of continuus, i.e., ‘a continuous body or thing.’] A continuous thing, quantity, or substance; a continuous series of elements passing into each other.
1650. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., II. i. (ed. 2), 40. The fusible salt draws the earth and infusible part into one continuum.
1677. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., IV. iv. 327. The admirable accommodation of the several Parts of the Humane Body to make up one Continuum.
1865. Grote, Plato, I. i. 13. There could be no continuum: each numerical unit was distinct and separated from the rest by a portion of vacant space.
a. 1878. Lewes, Study Psychol. (1879), 133. To these animals [the wolf and dog] the external world seems a continuum of scents, as to man it is a continuum of sights.
1886. J. Ward, in Encycl. Brit., XX. 51/1. (Psychology) All possible sensations of colour, of tone, and of temperature constitute as many groups of qualitative continua.
