limit

A restriction; a bound beyond which one may not go or proceed.

Adjective

  1. Being a fixed limit game.

Origin

From Middle English limit, from Old French limit, from oblique stem of Latin līmes, līmit- (“a cross-path or balk between fields, hence a boundary, boundary line or wall, any path or road, border, limit”). Displaced native Old English ġemǣre. Doublet of limes.

Related

bound function

Noun

  1. A restriction; a bound beyond which one may not go or proceed.
    • There are several existing limits to executive power.
    • Two drinks is my limit tonight.
    • It is the conductor which communicates to the inhabitants of regions beyond its limit […] - 1838 March – 1839 October, Charles Dickens, chapter 21, in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, London: Chapman and...
  2. A value to which a sequence converges. Equivalently, the common value of the upper limit and the lower limit of a sequence: if the upper and lower limits are different, then the sequence has no limit (i.e., does not converge).
    • The sequence of reciprocals has zero as its limit.
  3. Any of several abstractions of this concept of limit.
    • Category theory defines a very general concept of limit.
  4. The cone of a diagram through which any other cone of that same diagram can factor uniquely.

    Synonyms: inverse limit projective limit

    Hyponyms: terminal object categorical product pullback equalizer identity morphism

  5. Fixed limit.
  6. The final, utmost, or furthest point; the border or edge.
    • the limit of a walk, of a town, or of a country
    • As eager of the chase, the maid / Beyond the forest's verdant limits strayed. - 1713, [Alexander] Pope, Windsor-Forest. […], London: […] Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC:
    • "Like many other large resorts, the town operated electric tramways, with open-topped cars. The journey down the steep incline to the harbour must have been exhilarating at times, testing the brakes on the vehicles to...
  7. The space or thing defined by limits.
    • The archdeacon hath divided it / Into three limits very equally. - c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […]...
  8. That terminates a period of time; hence, the period itself; the full time or extent.
    • the dateless limit of thy dear exile - 1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies:...
    • The limit of your lives is out. - c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
  9. A restriction; a check or curb; a hindrance.
    • I prithee, give no limits to my tongue. - c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio),...
  10. A determining feature; a distinguishing characteristic.
  11. The first group of riders to depart in a handicap race.
  12. A person who is exasperating, intolerable, astounding, etc.
    • Englehorn looked at his employer in incredulous admiration. ‘You’re the limit,’ he declared. - 1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 63:

Forms

limits

Synonyms

bound boundary limitation restriction threshold rim

Derived

age limit antilimit Armstrong limit Atterberg limit Betz limit blowdown limit Bremermann's limit cash limit central limit theorem Chandrasekhar limit Chu-Harrington limit city limit(s) colimit credit limit Dawes resolution limit Deutsch limit diffraction limit direct limit dizzy limit Eddington limit elastic limit Gabrielli-von Karman limit Gabrielli-von Kármán limit giddy limit

Verb

  1. To restrict; to circumscribe; not to allow to go beyond a certain bound, to set boundaries.
    • We need to limit the power of the executive.
    • I'm limiting myself to two drinks tonight.
    • [The Chinese government] has jailed environmental activists and is planning to limit the power of judicial oversight by handing a state-approved body a monopoly over bringing environmental lawsuits. - 2013 August 10,...

    Synonyms: check straiten behedge blunt crimp delay difficult diminish forestay interfere intervene forslow frustrate get in the way hamper handicap hinder hold up hurt impair impede incommode lessen let

    Antonyms: expand release

  2. To have a limit in a particular set.
    • The sequence limits on the point a.
  3. To beg, or to exercise functions, within a certain limited region.
    • a limiting friar

Origin

From Middle English limiten, from Old French limiter, from Latin līmitō (“to bound, limit, fix, determine”), from līmes; see noun.

Forms

limits limiting limited

Derived

limitable limit out prelimit self-limiting