Forms: 4–6 lymyte, 5–7 lymit(te, (5 -ytt), 6 limitt, li-, lymmet, limete, lymet(e, lemyet, 6–7 limite, 7 limmit, 6– limit. [ad. F. limite, ad. L. līmit-em, līmes boundary.]
1. A boundary, frontier; an object serving to define a boundary, a landmark. Now only in narrower sense: A boundary or terminal point considered as confining or restricting; chiefly pl. bounds.
c. 1375. [see limit-stead in 5].
a. 1400–50. Alexander, 5069. Qua list þis lymit ouir-lende, lene to þe left hand.
1474. Caxton, Chesse, 144. Wyth in the lymytes and space of the royame.
a. 1529. Skelton, Bk. 3 Foles, Wks. (1568), X v b. Romulus … dyd Instytute lymittes or markes aboute the citie.
1550. Crowley, Last Trump., 1482. Let it suffice the, to defende thy limites from inuasion.
1555. Eden, Decades, 83. That twoo such seas haue enuironed any lande with soo narowe lymittes.
1570. Billingsley, Euclid, I. def. iii. The endes or limites of a lyne, are pointes.
1587. Mirr. Mag., Forrex, vi. T’inlarge the limetes of our kingdome wide.
1598. in Egerton Papers (Camden), 278. Chiveat Hill, being the lemyet of the Easte Marche.
1624. Wotton, Elem. Archit., I. 24. When they haue chosen the Floore, or Plot, and laid out the Limits of the Worke, wee should first of all Digge Wels and Cesternes [etc.].
1625. N. Carpenter, Geog. Del., II. ix. (1635), 154. Hence is the water enforced to enlarge his limits.
1641. J. Jackson, True Evang. T., III. 201. Peter Heywood Esquire, one of the Kings Justices of the Peace within the limits of Westminster.
1655. Fuller, Ch. Hist., I. v. § 14. The Picts Wall … being a better Limit then Fortification, served rather to define then defend the Roman Empire.
1711. Steele, Spect., No. 54, ¶ 2. To be confined within the Limits of a good handsome convenient Chamber.
1734. Berkeley, Analyst, Wks. III. 279. A point may be the limit of a line.
1823. F. Clissold, Ascent Mt. Blanc, 23. A circle of thin haze … marked dimly the limits between heaven and earth.
† b. Contour (of the human form). Obs. rare–1.
1636. W. Bettie, Titana & Theseus, B 3. He stept into a greene Arbour … where he first viewed each limit, or proportraiture of her body. Ibid., B 3 b. Theseus … thought it very strange, that Nature should endow … such comely limmits with such peruerse conditions.
2. One of the fixed points between which the possible or permitted extent, amount, duration, range of action, or variation of anything is confined; a bound that may not be passed, or beyond which something ceases to be possible or allowable.
Superior limit: the earlier of the two dates, or the higher of the two quantitative extremes, between which the possible range of something is confined; contrariwise inferior limit.
c. 1380. Wyclif, Sel. Wks., III. 362. Þanne Goddis lawe myȝte freeli renne bi þe lymytis þat Crist haþ ordeyned.
1502. Atkynson, trans. De Imitatione, III. viii. 203. Nat ponderinge theyr exyle & pore lymytes of reson.
1579–80. North, Plutarch, Theseus (1595), 2. They range … out of the boundes or limites of true apparance.
1594. Shaks., Rich. III., III. iii. 8. Dispatch, the limit of your Liues is out. Ibid. (c. 1600), Sonn., lxxxii. Finding thy worth a limmit past my praise.
1651. Hobbes, Leviath., II. xxii. 121. For the limits of how farre such a Body shall represent the whole People.
1693. Congreve, in Dryden’s Juvenal (1697), 282. A Wise Man’s Pow’r’s the Limit of his Will.
1725. Watts, Logic, I. vi. § 5. To leave Obscurities in the Sentence, by confining it within too narrow Limits.
1785. Reid, Intell. Powers, II. xxi. 279. Nature has set limits to the pleasures of sense.
1818. Jas. Mill, Brit. India, II. V. v. 505. For six hours … every part of the English army was engaged to the utmost limit of exertion.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. vi. 46. The limit at which the eye can appreciate differences of brightness.
1874. Micklethwaite, Mod. Par. Churches, 183. That subject is beyond our present limits.
1878. Huxley, Physiogr., 59. A crystal however has absolutely no limit to its growth.
1878. Browning, La Saisiaz, 23. Would I shrink to learn my life-time’s limit.
1894. Current Hist. (U. S.), IV. 355. Rear Admiral … B. … retired from the active list of the navy under the limit-of-age law.
1895. J. A. Beet, New Life in Christ, I. vi. 45. The Bible frequently asserts or assumes that all men have … transgressed limits marked out by an authority which none can question.
1895. Ld. Esher, in Law Times Rep., LXXIII. 702/1. The section does not deal with salvage beyond the three miles limit.
b. Math. In various applications. (a) A finite quantity to which the sum of a converging series progressively approximates, but to which it cannot become equal in a finite number of terms. (b) A fixed value to which a function can be made to approach continually, so as to differ from it by less than any assignable quantity, by making the independent variable approach some assigned value. (c) Each of the two values of a variable, between which a definite integral is taken. (d) The ultimate position of the point of intersection of two lines which, by their relative motion, are tending to coalescence.
Doctrine or Method of Limits: a term chiefly used to designate that mode of expounding the principles of the Differential and Integral Calculus, according to which the conception of ‘limits’ or ‘limiting values’ forms the basis of the system.
[a. 1727. Newton, Opuscula, I. 53. Quibus Terminis, sive Limitibus respondent semicirculi Limites, sive Termini.]
1753. in Chambers, Cycl. Supp.
1797. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3), X. 78/2. Limit, in a restrained sense, is used by mathematicians for a determined quantity to which a variable one continually approaches; in which sense, the circle may be said to be the limit of its circumscribed and inscribed polygons. In algebra the term limit is applied to two quantities, one of which is greater and the other less than another quantity; and in this sense it is used in speaking of the limits of equations, whereby their solution is much facilitated.
1839. Penny Cycl., XIII. 496/2. There are two conditions which must be fulfilled before A can be called the limit of P; first, P must never become equal to A; secondly P must be capable of being made as nearly equal to A as we please.
1842. De Morgan, Diff. Calc., Pref. The idea of limits being absolutely necessary even to the proper conception of a convergent series. Ibid., Introd. Chap. 32. A case will be found in which the limit of an intersection is deduced.
1844. J. Hymers, Integral Calc. (ed. 3), 122. They [integrals] are usually required … between limits.
1857. Wood, Algebra, 168. This quantity, which we call the sum of the series, is the limit to which the sum of the terms approaches, but never actually attains.
c. Astron. Limit of a planet: its greatest heliocentric latitude.
1704. J. Harris, Lex. Techn., Limit of a Planet is the greatest Heliocentrick Latitude.
1727–41. Chambers, Cycl., Limits of a planet, its greatest excursions or distances from the ecliptic.
1797. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 3), II. 507/2. Suppose Venus to be in the point C in her utmost north limit.
d. Comm. In various applications, e.g., the amount up to which a particular customer of a bank is not permitted to overdraw, the price given by a principal to an agent as the highest at which he will buy, or the lowest at which he will sell. Founder’s limit (see quot. 1872–6).
1866. Crump, Banking, iii. 76. The banker gives him [his customer] a ‘limit,’ beyond which he must not draw.
1872–6. Voyle, Milit. Dict. (ed. 3), Limit, Founder’s. In the manufacture of ordnance, the limitation of error for guns, shot, &c. allowed to the founder.
e. In generalized sense: Limitation, restriction within limits. Chiefly in phr. without limit.
1599. Shaks., Much Ado, I. iii. 5. The sadnesse is without limit.
1742. Young, Nt. Th., V. 463. Souls … Disdaining Limit, or from Place, or Time.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), IV. 22. Pain is the violation, and pleasure the restoration of limit.
¶ f. Used by Shaks. for: Prescribed time; the prescribed period of repose after child-bearing.
1603. Shaks., Meas. for M., III. i. 224. Between which time of the contract, and limit of the solemnitie. Ibid. (1611), Wint. T., III. ii. 107. Lastly, hurried Here, to this place, i’ th’ open ayre, before I haue got strength of limit.
† 3. The tract or region defined by a boundary; pl. the bounds, territories. Obs.
1494. Fabyan, Chron., VI. clxiii. 156. The sayd two bretherne … entryd the lymyttys of Kynge Charlys.
1581. Lambarde, Eiren., IV. xx. (1588), 619. Those Sessions were to be holden in euery limite of the Shire.
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., III. i. 75. The Arch-Deacon hath diuided it Into three Limits, very equally. Ibid. (c. 1600), Sonn., xliv. I would be brought From limits farre remote, where thou doost stay.
1603. Owen, Pembrokeshire (1891), 161. In everye Parishe or Lymitte.
1611. Bible, Ezek. xliii. 12. Vpon the top of the mountaine, the whole limit thereof round about shall be most holy.
a. 1649. Winthrop, Hist. New Eng. (1826), II. 314. The Dutch governour … pretended to seize the ship as forfeit to the West India Company by trading in their limits without leave.
1667. Milton, P. L., V. 755. At length into the limits of the North They came.
1792. S. Rogers, Pleas. Mem., I. 290. Great Navarre, when France and freedom bled Sought the lone limits of a forest shed.
† b. ? A division or part of the territory (in quot., of one of the Cinque Ports). Obs.
c. 1692. R. Gibson, in Gardiner, 1st Dutch War (1899), I. 40. The sea government at all those places by courts of Lode manage at each, and the lesser seaports adjacent to be made limits to the greater.
c. U.S. and Canada. A tract of woodland of defined extent, a timber allotment.
1887. S. Cumberland, Queen’s Highw. fr. Ocean to O. (1887), 5. Timber limits of inexhaustible extent.
1888. C. H. Farnham, in Harper’s Mag., March, 550/2. The voyageur … explores and reports the quality and quantity of timber in certain ‘limits’ or lots.
† 4. Logic. = TERM (med.L. terminus). Obs.
1599. Blundeville, Art of Logic, V. i. 116. Why are they [sc. material principles] called tearmes or limites? Because they lymmet a proposition … and bee the vttermost partes or bondes whereunto any proposition is to bee resolved, as for example in this proposition, euery man is a sensible bodie: these two wordes, man and sensible bodie, are the tearmes, limmetes, or boundes, whereof as the saide proposition is compounded, so into the same it is to be resolued, as into his vttermost parts that haue any signification.
5. attrib., as limit-law, -line; † limit-stead, a place on a boundary.
1849. R. V. Dixon, Heat, I. 139. Boyle’s and Mariotte’s law may be considered a *‘limit law.’
1864. Browning, Dram. Pers., James Lee, viii. 14. ‘As like as a Hand to another Hand:’ Who said that, never … followed, like me, an hour, The beauty in this … of the *limit-line!
1889. Boy’s Own Paper, 7 Sept., 780/1. At a given distance from the limit-line of the square in putting the weight … a rectangular pit is prepared.
c. 1375. Sc. Leg. Saints, xliii. (Cecile), 448. Þane ware þe brethire one led, til þai come til þe *lymmyt-stede.
