- limit#
- limit n Limit, bound, confine, end, term are comparable when they mean an actual or imaginary line beyond which a thing does not or cannot extend.Limit is the most inclusive of these terms because it carries no necessary implication of number, that always being suggested by the context; thus, a thing (as a man's strength, the extent of his authority, or the reach of his arm) may be said to have a limit, implying one only; some other thing (as a race course, a lifetime, or a period of time) may be said to have its limits, but since linear extent and duration are specifically implied, these limits are by implication two in number{
the limits of a room are usually its four walls
}{nightingales will not pass their limits; they seem to have a marked-out range as strictly defined as the lines of a geological map— Jefferies
}Also, limit may be applied to a line which is fixed by nature or inner necessity, established by authority, or determined by agreement{with- in the limits of human reason
}{the limit of the fisherman's catch is determined by the state game laws
}{lives within the limits of his income
}{determine the limits for the treatment of a topic
}{the limits of Santayana as a poet . . . are the restraints of an academic habit— Edman
}Bound and confine, on the other hand, are applicable to only one of the limits that comprise the real or imaginary boundaries of a thing. Both terms are used chiefly in the plural, even when the boundary line is continuous and forms a circle or only one side; the same is true of a bounding surface that forms a sphere{within the bounds of the earth
}{thirty bonfires could be counted within the whole bounds of the district— Hardy
}{the western confines of China
}{within the confines of our subject
}{the furthest confines of the family property— Menen
}The distinctions between these two words are not always apparent; however, bounds usually indicates a point of view from within and suggests restriction, and confines indicates a point of view either from within or without and suggests enclosure{the book passes beyond the bounds of decency
}{how they behaved in their spare time, nobody cared, and few knew .... They had no bounds to respect— Fforde
}{strain the confines of formal monogamous marriage—La Barre
}End (see also END 2 ; INTENTION) applies usually to one of the two uttermost limits or extremes of a thing; this use is chiefly found in idiomatic phrases{travel to the ends of the earth
}but it occurs also in reference to either extreme in an ascending or descending scale, or in a series that progresses from one extreme to its diametrical opposite{at one end of the social scale there is the outcast or the pariah; at the other end, the elite
}{admired from one end of Europe to the other— Andrews
}Term applies usually to a limit in duration{neither history nor archaeology has yet put a term to Roman civilization in London— William Page
}Analogous words: limitation, restriction, circumscription, confinement (see corresponding verbs at LIMIT): *border, margin, verge, edge, rim, brim, brinklimit vb Limit, restrict, circumscribe, confine mean to set or prescribe the bounds for a person or thing.Limit usually implies the predetermination of a point (as in time, in space, in quantity, in capacity, or in production) beyond which the person or thing concerned cannot go or is not permitted to go without suffering a penalty or incurring undesirable consequences{limit the speed of automobiles to 45 miles an hour outside of towns and cities
}{limit the time allowed for the erection of a building to one year from the date of the signing of the contract
}{limit the acreage planted with potatoes
}{limit a day's work to five hours
}{the great point ... on these sacred occasions was for each man to strictly limit himself to half-a-pint of liquor— Hardy
}{the Constitution limits his functions in the law-making process to the recommending . . . and the vetoing of laws— Current History
}But limit may also be used with reference to a bound or bounds not predetermined but inherent in a situation or in the nature or constitution of a thing{the poor soil limited their crops
}{a lonely young girl limited ... by the absence of compan-ionship— Handlin
}or brought about as desirable by conscious effort or by full choice{medical science knows how to limit these evils— Eliot
}{limited his aspirations to the search for the attainable
}Restrict, in contrast to limit, suggests a boundary that encircles and encloses rather than a point that ends; the term therefore often applies to something which can be thought of in the terms of the space, territory, or field that it covers. The word often also connotes a narrowing or tightening{restrict the powers of a court
}{restrict the freedom of the press
}{restricted his diet on orders from his physician
}{the bureau was dismembered, its staff dispersed, and its appropriations for research restricted almost to the vanishing point— Heiser
}Combinations have arisen which restrict the very freedom that{Bentham sought to attain— Justice Holmes
}Circumscribe differs from restrict in that its implication of an encircling or enclosing boundary is always clear; consequently, it is often preferred to restrict when the idea of being kept within too small an extent or range is to be stressed{people . . . think that the emotional range, and the realistic truth, of drama is limited and circumscribed by verse— T. S. Eliot
}or when there is the intent to suggest a distinct, complete, but limited whole and its apartness from all that surrounds it{to undertake here to inquire into the degree of its necessity, would be to pass the line which circumscribes the judicial department— John Marshall
}{the world to which they belonged and for which they worked was strictly circumscribed and complete within itself— Binyon
}Confine may imply limitation, restriction, or circumscription, but it usually emphasizes the bounds which must not or cannot be passed; consequently, it often suggests severe restraint or restraints and carries connotations such as those of cramping, fettering, hampering, or bottling up that are not often present in the other words{now I am cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in to saucy doubts and fears— Shak.
}{the distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished, if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed— John Marshall
}{it is not desirable to confine knowledge to whatever can be put into a useful shape for examinations, drawing rooms, or the still more pretentious modes of publicity— T. S. Eliot
}{we are confined to our senses for perceiving the world— Darrow
}Antonyms: widen
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
