Webster
✕

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Infinity

In·fin′i·ty (ĭn·fĭn′ĭ·ty̆), n.; pl. Infinities (#). [L. infinitas; pref. in- not + finis boundary, limit, end: cf. F. infinité. See Finite.]

1. Unlimited extent of time, space, or quantity; eternity; boundlessness; immensity. Sir T. More.

There can not be more infinities than one; for one of them would limit the other. Sir W. Raleigh.

2. Unlimited capacity, energy, excellence, or knowledge; as, the infinity of God and his perfections. Hooker.

3. Endless or indefinite number; great multitude; as an infinity of beauties. Broome.

4. (Math.) A quantity greater than any assignable quantity of the same kind.

☞ Mathematically considered, infinity is always a limit of a variable quantity, resulting from a particular supposition made upon the varying element which enters it. Davies & Peck (Math. Dict.).

5. (Geom.) That part of a line, or of a plane, or of space, which is infinitely distant. In modern geometry, parallel lines or planes are sometimes treated as lines or planes meeting at infinity.

Circle at infinity, an imaginary circle at infinity, through which, in geometry of three dimensions, every sphere is imagined to pass. — Circular points at infinity. See under Circular.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.