Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The point, edge, or line beyond which something ends, may not go, or is not allowed.
  • noun The boundary surrounding a specific area; bounds.
  • noun Something that restricts or restrains; a restraint.
  • noun The greatest or least amount, number, or extent allowed or possible.
  • noun Games The largest amount which may be bet at one time in games of chance.
  • noun A number or point L that is approached by a function f(x) as x approaches a if, for every positive number ε, there exists a number δ such that |f(x)−L| < ε if |x−a| < δ.
  • noun A number or point L that is approached by a sequence bn if, for every positive number ε, there exists a number N such that |bn−L| < ε if n > N.
  • noun Informal One that is intolerable, remarkable, or extreme in some other way.
  • transitive verb To confine or restrict with a limit.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To restrict within limits; bound; set bounds to.
  • To assign to a limit or confine; fix within a limit; allot.
  • To fix as a limit; assign exclusively or specifically.
  • To exercise any function, as begging, within a limited district: as, a limiting friar.
  • noun Inpoker, an amount, agreed upon before play begins, by which any one player may increase his bet over that of another. Sometimes called the raise.
  • noun A definite terminal or border line; a boundary; that which bounds or circumscribes in a material manner; as, the northern limit of a field or town; the limits of a country.
  • noun A terminal line or point in general; the extent or reach beyond which continuity ceases; a fixed term or bound as to amount, supply, continuance, inclusion, or the like: used of both material and immaterial things: as, to reach the limit of one's resources; the limit of vision or of resistance; to set limits to one's ambition.
  • noun That which is within or defined by limits; confine; district; region.
  • noun A logical term. See the quotation.
  • noun In mathematics, the precise boundary between two continuous regions of magnitude or quantity; especially, the point at which a variable upon which some function depends passes through infinity.
  • noun A limb, as a limit or extremity of the body.
  • noun Synonyms Confine, termination, bourn, precinct, boundary, frontier (see boundary); restriction, restraint, check.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To apply a limit to, or set a limit for; to terminate, circumscribe, or restrict, by a limit or limits
  • transitive verb (Astron.) those parallels of latitude between which only an occultation of a star or planet by the moon, in a given case, can occur.
  • noun That which terminates, circumscribes, restrains, or confines; the bound, border, or edge; the utmost extent
  • noun The space or thing defined by limits.
  • noun That which terminates a period of time; hence, the period itself; the full time or extent.
  • noun A restriction; a check; a curb; a hindrance.
  • noun (Logic & Metaph.) A determining feature; a distinguishing characteristic; a differentia.
  • noun (Math.) A determinate quantity, to which a variable one continually approaches, and may differ from it by less than any given difference, but to which, under the law of variation, the variable can never become exactly equivalent.
  • noun See under Elastic.
  • noun a definite, extent of space in or around a prison, within which a prisoner has liberty to go and come.
  • intransitive verb obsolete To beg, or to exercise functions, within a certain limited region.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To restrict; not to allow to go beyond a certain bound.
  • verb mathematics, intransitive To have a limit in a particular set.
  • verb obsolete To beg, or to exercise functions, within a certain limited region.
  • noun A restriction; a bound beyond which one may not go.
  • noun mathematics 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).
  • noun mathematics Any of several abstractions of this concept of limit.
  • noun category theory Given diagram F : J → C, a cone (L, φ) from L ∈ Ob(C) to F is the limit of F if it has the universal property that for any other cone (N, ψ) from N ∈ Ob(C) to F there is a unique morphism u : N → L such that for all X ∈ Ob(J), .
  • noun poker Short for fixed limit.
  • noun The final, utmost, or furthest point.
  • adjective poker Being a fixed limit game.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the greatest possible degree of something
  • noun final or latest limiting point
  • noun the greatest amount of something that is possible or allowed
  • noun as far as something can go
  • verb restrict or confine,
  • verb place limits on (extent or access)
  • verb decide upon or fix definitely

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English limite, from Old French, border, from Latin līmes, līmit-, border, limit.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English, from Old French, from Latin limes ("a cross-path or balk between fields, hence a boundary, boundary line or wall, any path or road, border, limit").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English limiten, from Old French limiter, from Latin limitare ("to bound, limit, fix, determine"), from limes; see noun.

Support

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Examples

  • If men's wages fall below a certain limit, they become tramps, thieves, and robbers; but woman's wages _have no limit_, since she can always work for less than she can subsist upon, the _paths of shame being open to her_.

    Women Wage-Earners Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future Helen Campbell 1878

  • A $limit of "- 1″," 0″, or NULL means "no limit" and, as is standard across PHP, you can use NULL to skip to the $flags parameter. flags: Can be a combination of the flags defined below (combined with the bitwise "|" operator).

    Muti 2009

  • $pattern. pattern: The pattern to search for, as a string. limit: If specified, then only substrings up to $limit are returned with the rest of the string being placed in the last substring.

    Muti 2009

  • To realize maintaining a list of the minimal k elements, I used a derived max heap, which is limited to k elements: limit = (int) $limit;} public function compare ($a, $b) {if (! (

    Planet PHP 2010

  • To realize maintaining a list of the minimal k elements, I used a derived max heap, which is limited to k elements: limit = (int) $limit;} public function compare ($a, $b) {if (! (

    Planet PHP 2010

  • To realize maintaining a list of the minimal k elements, I used a derived max heap, which is limited to k elements: limit = (int) $limit;} public function compare ($a, $b) {if (! (

    Planet PHP 2010

  • To realize maintaining a list of the minimal k elements, I used a derived max heap, which is limited to k elements: limit = (int) $limit;} public function compare ($a, $b) {if (! (

    Planet PHP 2010

  • Defaults to -1 (no limit). count: If specified, this variable will be filled with the number of replacements done. preg_replace (mixed $pattern, mixed $replacement, mixed $subject [, int $limit = -1

    Muti 2009

  • Though he may still need a new day job - he will reach his term limit in the City Council in 2013.

    NYT > Home Page By IAN LOVETT 2011

  • Thanks to a term limit and possible misconduct, the plum Bronx Surrogate's job is soon coming up for grabs, our dear Bob Kappstatter Surrogate Lee Holzman is due to step down when his 12-year-term expires Dec. 31, 2012.

    NY Daily News 2011

Comments

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  • On a road the speed limit may be 70mph but this doesn't say what the slowest you can leagally drive is.

    I think the word for this should be "lowmit".

    I cannot find any trace of this word online and I'm leaving this comment so that I can have it recorded somewhere.

    June 10, 2010

  • I prefer "lowmit" be classed as an "illeagal" word.

    June 10, 2010