Limit

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈlɪmɪt/
• Rhymes: -ɪmɪt

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").

Noun

1. A restriction; a bound beyond which one may not go.There are several existing limits to executive power.Two drinks is my limit tonight.
• 1839, Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, chapter 21:It is the conductor which communicates to the inhabitants of regions beyond its limit, ...
• 1922, James_Joyce, Ulysses, episode 17:Ever he would wander, selfcompelled, to the extreme limit of his cometary orbit, beyond the fixed stars and variable suns and telescopic planets, astronomical waifs and strays, to the extreme boundary of space, ...
• 2012 March 6, Dan McCrum, Nicole Bullock and Guy Chazan, Financial Times, “Utility buyout loses power in shale gas revolution”:At the time, there seemed to be no limit to the size of ever-larger private equity deals, with banks falling over each other to arrange financing on generous terms and to invest money from their own private equity arms.
2. (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).The sequence of reciprocals has zero as its limit.
3. (mathematics) Any of several abstractions of this concept of limit.Category theory defines a very general concept of limit.
4. (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), $\backslash phi\_X\; \backslash circ\; u\; =\; \backslash psi\_X$

1. (poker) Short for fixed limit.
2. The final, utmost, or furthest point; the border or edge.the limit of a walk, of a town, or of a country
• Alexander PopeAs eager of the chase, the maid
  Beyond the forest's verdant limits strayed.
3. (obsolete) The space or thing defined by limits.
• ShakespeareThe archdeacon hath divided it
  Into three limits very equally.
4. (obsolete) That which terminates a period of time; hence, the period itself; the full time or extent.
• Shakespearethe dateless limit of thy dear exile
• ShakespeareThe limit of your lives is out.
5. (obsolete) A restriction; a check or curb; a hindrance.
• ShakespeareI prithee, give no limits to my tongue.
6. (logic, metaphysics) A determining feature; a distinguishing characteristic.

Synonyms

• (restriction) bound, boundary, limitation, restriction

Derived terms

Descendants

• German: Limit

Full definition of limit

Adjective

1. (poker) Being a fixed limit game.

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

Verb

1. (transitive) To restrict; not to allow to go beyond a certain bound.
   We need to limit the power of the executive.
   I'm limiting myself to two drinks tonight.
• 2013-08-10, Can China clean up fast enough?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.
2. (mathematics, intransitive) To have a limit in a particular set.
   The sequence limits on the point a.
3. (obsolete) To beg, or to exercise functions, within a certain limited region.
   a limiting friar

Synonyms

• (restrict) cap; restrict; withstrain