Loading page
say it: LIM-uht
limit is a noun and verb meaning "the greatest possible degree of something". It carries 9 recorded senses.
the greatest possible degree of something
“what he did was beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior”
“to the limit of his ability”
final or latest limiting point
the boundary of a specific area
the mathematical value toward which a function goes as the independent variable approaches infinity
the greatest amount of something that is possible or allowed
“there are limits on the amount you can bet”
“it is growing rapidly with no limitation in sight”
restrict or confine within limits
“I limit you to two visits to the pub a day”
“please confine your questions to the topic”
“our actions are circumscribed by our biology, personality, and by the social and cultural context into which we are born”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for limit come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.