continuum

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin continuum, neuter form of continuus, from contineō (“contain, enclose”).

noun

1. A continuous series or whole, no part of which is noticeably different from its adjacent parts, although the ends or extremes of it are very different from each other.
   So, the white line implies Blacklessness and the black background implies Whitelessness – that is, once the white line, a continuum, has emerged from blackness, also a continuum, and the two continua engage in an “inter-penetrative” (Buddhist term) process. 2014, Torkild Thellefsen, Bent Sorensen, Charles Sanders Peirce in His Own Words
   In fact, the influence of signage in a certain area may exist anywhere on a continuum from profoundly effective to utterly trivial or completely insignificant, irrespective of the intent motivating the signs. 2019, Li Huang, James Lambert, “Another Arrow for the Quiver: A New Methodology for Multilingual Researchers”, in Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, →DOI, page 11
2. A continuous extent.
   A doorknob of whatever roundish shape is effectively a continuum of levers, with the axis of the latching mechanism—known as the spindle—being the fulcrum about which the turning takes place. 2012-03, Henry Petroski, “Opening Doors”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, pages 112–3
3. (mathematics) The nondenumerable set of real numbers; more generally, any compact connected metric space.
4. (music) A touch-sensitive strip, similar to an electronic standard musical keyboard, except that the note steps are ¹⁄₁₀₀ of a semitone, and so are not separately marked.