CONTINUANCE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does continuance mean? 

• CONTINUANCE (noun)
  The noun CONTINUANCE has 3 senses:

1. the act of continuing an activity without interruption

2. the period of time during which something continues

3. the property of enduring or continuing in time

  Familiarity information: CONTINUANCE used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CONTINUANCE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The act of continuing an activity without interruption

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Synonyms:

continuance; continuation

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

activity (any specific behavior)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "continuance"):

lengthening; perpetuation; prolongation; protraction (the act of prolonging something)

repeating; repetition (the act of doing or performing again)

perseverance; perseveration; persistence (the act of persisting or persevering; continuing or repeating behavior)

abidance (the act of abiding (enduring without yielding))

prosecution; pursuance (the continuance of something begun with a view to its completion)

survival (something that survives)

Antonym:

discontinuance (the act of discontinuing or breaking off; an interruption (temporary or permanent))

Derivation:

continue (continue a certain state, condition, or activity)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The period of time during which something continues

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Synonyms:

continuance; duration

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

period; period of time; time period (an amount of time)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "continuance"):

clocking (the time taken to traverse a measured course)

longueur (a period of dullness or boredom (especially in a work of literature or performing art))

residence time (the period of time spent in a particular place)

span (the complete duration of something)

stint; stretch (an unbroken period of time during which you do something)

time scale (an arrangement of events used as a measure of duration)

note value; time value; value ((music) the relative duration of a musical note)

rule (the duration of a monarch's or government's power)

Derivation:

continue (exist over a prolonged period of time)

Sense 3

Meaning:

The property of enduring or continuing in time

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Synonyms:

continuance; duration

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

time (the continuum of experience in which events pass from the future through the present to the past)

Derivation:

continuant (of speech sounds produced by forcing air through a constricted passage (as 'f', 's', 'z', or 'th' in both 'thin' and 'then'))

 Context examples 

The continuance of their engagement, and the means that were able to be taken for promoting its end, was all her communication; and this produced from Mrs. Jennings the following natural remark.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

At that moment Catherine thought she heard her step in the gallery, and listened for its continuance; but all was silent.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

I saw nothing in this country that could invite me to a longer continuance, and began to think of returning home to England.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

It was on the wedding-day of this beloved friend that Emma first sat in mournful thought of any continuance.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Her opinion was sought as to the probable continuance of the open weather, but her answers were as short and indifferent as civility allowed.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

As he quitted the room, Elizabeth felt how improbable it was that they should ever see each other again on such terms of cordiality as had marked their several meetings in Derbyshire; and as she threw a retrospective glance over the whole of their acquaintance, so full of contradictions and varieties, sighed at the perverseness of those feelings which would now have promoted its continuance, and would formerly have rejoiced in its termination.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

I should be undeserving of the confidence you have honoured me with, if I felt no desire for its continuance, or no farther curiosity on its subject.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Before the middle of the next day, he was at Hartfield; and he entered the room with such an agreeable smile as certified the continuance of the scheme.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

Neither are any wars so furious and bloody, or of so long a continuance, as those occasioned by difference in opinion, especially if it be in things indifferent.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Dejected and humbled, she had even some thoughts of not going with the others to the theatre that night; but it must be confessed that they were not of long continuance, for she soon recollected, in the first place, that she was without any excuse for staying at home; and, in the second, that it was a play she wanted very much to see.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)