Continuing or continuous?
continuing is a noun meaning “A continuation”; continuous is an adjective meaning “Without stopping; without a break, cessation, or interruption”. Use continuing as a noun and continuous as an adjective (continuing is also an adjective: “Being the successor to a no longer extant organization…”). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) continuing is about 1.9 times as common as continuous.
What is the difference between continuing and continuous?
| continuing | continuous | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, adjective, verb | adjective |
| Meaning | A continuation UKBeing the successor to a no longer extant organization, operating under the same name and usually claiming to be the same entity | Without stopping; without a break, cessation, or interruption Without intervening space; continued |
| Example | none recorded | the continuous roar of a waterfall |
| Forms | continuings | none |
| Pronunciation | /kənˈtɪn.juːɪŋ/ /kənˈtɪn.juɪŋ/ | /kənˈtɪn.juː.əs/ /-(j)ɪu̯.əs/ |
| In writing | 30 times per million words | 16 times per million words |
Sources: continuing and continuous in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of continuing and continuous
continuing
- 1
A continuation
- 2
UKBeing the successor to a no longer extant organization, operating under the same name and usually claiming to be the same entity
continuous
- 1
Without stopping; without a break, cessation, or interruption
the continuous roar of a waterfall
- 2
Without intervening space; continued
a continuous line of railroad
- 3
Not deviating or varying from uniformity; not interrupted; not joined or articulated
- 4
Such that, for every x in the domain, for each small open interval D about f(x), there's an interval containing x whose image is in D
- 5
Such that each open set in the target space has an open preimage (in the domain space, with respect to the given function)
Each continuous function from the real line to the rationals is constant, since the rationals are totally disconnected
- 6
Expressing an ongoing action or state
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, continuing or continuous?
continuing appears 30 times per million words; continuous 16 times per million words.
continuing 30 times per million wordscontinuous 16 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).