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Continual vs Continuous

Definitions​

  • ‘Continual’ (adj) means ‘being repeated frequently; recurring’.
  • ‘Continuous’ (adj) means ‘happening without interruption’.

What’s the difference between ‘continual’ and ‘continuous’?​

Both adjectives are derivations of the verb ‘continue’, which makes them easily confused. Some people think they are interchangeable, but the truth is they mean slightly different things.

  • ‘Continual’ refers to something that is frequently repeated, but which has breaks in between. ‘Continuous’ refers to something that is nonstop.
  • Note that ‘continual’ can carry a negative connotation (as in the event that regularly occurs is annoying or inconvenient), while ‘continuous’ may have discipline-specific meanings.
  • In mathematics, a continuous function or curve changes gradually in value as the variable also changes in value. In statistics, a continuous variable has a continuum of possible values.

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How they’re used​

Example sentences with ‘continual’

  • Both organizations share a culture of continual improvement.
  • Several methods have been proposed to foster continual learning.

Example sentences with ‘continuous’

  • An interesting case of continuous fermentation was observed.
  • We propose a new method for generating continuous distributions.