CONTINENT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does Continent mean? 

• CONTINENT (noun)
  The noun CONTINENT has 2 senses:

1. one of the large landmasses of the earth

2. the European mainland

  Familiarity information: CONTINENT used as a noun is rare.

• CONTINENT (adjective)
  The adjective CONTINENT has 2 senses:

1. having control over urination and defecation

2. abstaining from sexual intercourse

  Familiarity information: CONTINENT used as an adjective is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CONTINENT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

One of the large landmasses of the earth

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Context example:

pioneers had to cross the continent on foot

Hypernyms ("continent" is a kind of...):

land mass; landmass (a large continuous extent of land)

Meronyms (parts of "continent"):

craton (the part of a continent that is stable and forms the central mass of the continent; typically Precambrian)

subcontinent (a large and distinctive landmass (as India or Greenland) that is a distinct part of some continent)

Instance hyponyms:

Africa (the second largest continent; located to the south of Europe and bordered to the west by the South Atlantic and to the east by the Indian Ocean)

Antarctic continent; Antarctica (an extremely cold continent at the south pole almost entirely below the Antarctic Circle; covered by an ice cap up to 13,000 feet deep)

Asia (the largest continent with 60% of the earth's population; it is joined to Europe on the west to form Eurasia; it is the site of some of the world's earliest civilizations)

Australia (the smallest continent; between the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean)

Eurasia (the land mass formed by the continents of Europe and Asia)

Europe (the 2nd smallest continent (actually a vast peninsula of Eurasia); the British use 'Europe' to refer to all of the continent except the British Isles)

Gondwanaland (a hypothetical continent that (according to plate tectonic theory) broke up later into India and Australia and Africa and South America and Antarctica)

Laurasia (a hypothetical continent that (according to plate tectonic theory) broke up later into North America and Europe and Asia)

North America (a continent (the third largest) in the western hemisphere connected to South America by the Isthmus of Panama)

Pangaea; Pangea ((plate tectonics) a hypothetical continent including all the landmass of the earth prior to the Triassic period when it split into Laurasia and Gondwanaland)

South America (a continent in the western hemisphere connected to North America by the Isthmus of Panama)

Derivation:

continental (being or concerning or limited to a continent especially the continents of North America or Europe)

continental (of or relating to or characteristic of a continent)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The European mainland

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Context example:

Englishmen like to visit the Continent but they wouldn't like to live there

Instance hypernyms:

mainland (the main land mass of a country or continent; as distinguished from an island or peninsula)

Holonyms ("Continent" is a part of...):

Europe (the 2nd smallest continent (actually a vast peninsula of Eurasia); the British use 'Europe' to refer to all of the continent except the British Isles)

Derivation:

Continental (of or pertaining to or typical of Europe)

• CONTINENT (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Having control over urination and defecation

Antonym:

incontinent (not having control over urination and defecation)

Derivation:

contain (contain or hold; have within)

continence (voluntary control over urinary and fecal discharge)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Abstaining from sexual intercourse

Synonyms:

celibate; continent

Context example:

celibate priests

Similar:

chaste (morally pure (especially not having experienced sexual intercourse))

Derivation:

continence; continency (the exercise of self constraint in sexual matters)

 Context examples 

After a nine-week voyage to study the lost, submerged continent of Zealandia in the South Pacific, a team of 32 scientists from 12 countries has arrived in Hobart, Tasmania, aboard the research vessel JOIDES Resolution.

(Scientists return from expedition to lost continent of Zealandia, National Science Foundation)

“What we hope is that Zealandia will appear on world maps, in schools, everywhere ...I think the revelation of a new continent is pretty exciting.”

(Researchers Argue for Eighth Continent: Zealandia, VOA)

Approximately 300 pterosaur species have been found across all continents.

(Brazil and China scientists unearth pterosaur eggs with preserved embryos, Agência Brasil)

Titanosaurs are best known from Cretaceous rocks in South America, but efforts by the team include new titanosaur species discovered in Tanzania, Egypt and other parts of the African continent.

(New dinosaur with heart-shaped tail offers clues to evolution of Africa's ecosystems, National Science Foundation)

For a long time, South America — after its disconnect from Antarctica — has been thought of as an island continent.

(First-ever fossil monkey found in North America, NSF)

The nurse is a foreigner, and Adela was born on the Continent; and, I believe, never left it till within six months ago.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

This result has implications for rainfall in the Asia-Pacific region as under increasing emissions of greenhouse gases, surface temperature over the Maritime Continent is expected to continue to rise.

(Global disasters linked to warming Indo-Pacific seas, SciDev.Net)

A land mass smaller than a continent that is surrounded by water.

(Island, NCI Thesaurus)

A supranational organization of countries across the European continent.

(European Union, NCI Thesaurus)

Primarily refers to a person having origins in the original peoples of the Indian sub-continent, a subset of which formed Pakistan.

(Pakistani, NCI Thesaurus)