22C:096
Computation, Information, and Description
Department of Computer Science
The University of Iowa
Lecture 1
Definition of "discrete"
To be confused with "discreet."
From Webster's New World Dictionary.
- discrete
- 1. separate and distinct. 2. made up of distinct parts.
From the Oxford English Dictionary.
- discrete (dI'skri:t), a. (sb.) Also 6 discreet.
- `separate, distinct', pa. pple. of discern re to separate,
divide, DISCERN: cf. later sense of Fr. discret, discrete `divided,
separate'.
In the sense of cl. L. discretus, discrete was used by Trevisa
(translating from L.), but app. was not in general use till late in 16th
c. But in another sense, `discerning, prudent' (derived through
French), discret, discrete was well-known in popular use from the 14th
c.; this, even in late ME., was occasionally spelt discreet, which
spelling was appropriated to it about the time that discrete in the
L. sense
began to be common; so that thenceforth discrete and discreet were
differentiated in spelling as well as in meaning: see DISCREET.
Before
this, while discrete was the prevalent form for the later discreet, it
is only rarely (see 1 B below) that discreet appears for the present
discrete.
A adj.
1 a Separate, detached from others, individually distinct. Opposed to
continuous.
1398 TREVISA Barth. De P.R. XIX. cxvi. (1495) 919 One is the
begynnynge of alle thynges that is contynual and dyscrete. 1570 DEE
Math.
Pref. 13 Of distinct and discrete Vnits. 1594 BLUNDEVIL Exerc. III. I.
xxxi. (ed. 7) 339 Of which Arkes some are called continuall, and some
discrete or divided. 1594 BLUNDEVIL Exerc., III. I. xxxi. (ed. 7) 339
That Arke is called discrete or broken, which doth not take his
beginning from the first point of Aries. 1634 PEACHAM Gentl. Exerc.
III. 137
Raine or water..being divided by the cold ayre, in the falling downe,
into discreet parts. 1775 HARRIS Philos. Arrangem. (1841) 308 The
motion of all animals..by being alternate, is of the discrete kind. 1851
NICHOL Archit. Heav. 47 Any telescope capable of resolving these various
masses into discrete stars. 1883 A. BARRATT Phys. Metempiric 59 To hold
together, and keep discrete, simultaneous phenomena.
Bspelt discreet.
1590 SPENSER F.Q. II. xii. 71 The waters fall with difference
discreet, Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call.
b Music. Applied to tones separated by fixed or obvious steps or
intervals of pitch, as the notes of a piano; also to a movement of the
voice from one pitch to another, as distinguished from a concrete
movement or slide.
Cf. CONCRETE 1 b.
1864 WEBSTER cites RUSH.
c Pathol. Separate, not coalescent or confluent: applied to stains,
spots, or pustules, when scattered separately from each other over a
surface, as in discrete small-pox F. variole discrete.
1854-67 C. A. HARRIS Dict. Med. Terminol. 218. 1882 CARPENTER in 19th
Cent. Apr. 531 The discrete, `distinct', or `benign' form being by no
means a severe disease, even among the unvaccinated. 1893 Daily News 4
Mar. 5/4 A woman..whose children had been removed for discrete smallpox.
d Logic. Individually distinct, but not different in kind.
1837-8 SIR W. HAMILTON Logic xi. (1866) I. 209 In so far as Conspecies
are considered to be different but not contradictory, they are properly
called Discrete or Disjunct Notions. 1837-8 SIR W. HAMILTON Logic
xii.(1860) I. 224 Notions co-ordinated in the quantity or whole of
extension..are only relatively different (or diverse); and in logical
language are properly called Disjunct or Discrete Notions. 1864 BOWEN
Logic iv. 66.
e discrete degrees: applied by Swedenborg to the various degrees or
levels of spiritual existence, conceived as so distinct and separate
from each other, as to render it impossible for any subject to pass out
of that one for which he is constituted.
1788 tr. Swedenborg's Wisd. Angels III. f236 In every Man from his
Birth there are three Degrees of Altitude, or discrete Degrees, one
above or within another. 1856 GRINDON Life (1863) 319 Where things are
differentiated by a discrete degree, the commencement of the new one
is..on a distinct and higher level.
2 a Consisting of distinct or individual parts; discontinuous.
discrete quantity, quantity composed of distinct units, as the
rational numbers; number. Distinguished from continuous quantity = magnitude.
1570 BILLINGSLEY Euclid II. i. 62 Two contrary kynds of quantity,
quantity discrete or number, and quantity continual or magnitude. 1687
H. MORE Answ. Psychop. (1689) 123 Inseperability, continued Amplitude,
belongs to Spirits as well as discrete Quantity. 1785 REID Int. Powers
III. iii. 311 Duration and extension are not discrete, but continued
quantity. 1785 REID Int. Powers 342 Number is called discrete quantity,
because it is compounded of units. 1837-9 HALLAM Hist. Lit. II. viii.
II. 322 note, They were dealing with continuous or geometrical, not
merely with descrete or arithmetical quantity. 1876 H. SPENCER Princ.
Sociol. (1877) I. 475 The parts of an animal form a concrete whole; but
the parts of a society form a whole that is discrete. 1893 FORSYTH Th.
Functions 584 If there be no infinitesimal substitution, then the group
is said to be discontinuous, or discrete. 1893 HARKNESS & MORLEY Th.
Functions 50 To Hankel we owe the idea of a discrete mass of points.
b Belonging to, pertaining to, or dealing with, distinct or
disconnected parts.
discrete proportion = DISCONTINUED proportion.
1660 R. COKE Justice Vind. 23 All Geometrical proportion is either
discrete, or continued. Discrete is, when the similitudo rationum is
only between the 1. and the 2. and the 3. and 4. term. 1706 PHILLIPS
(ed. Kersey), Discrete or Disjunct Proportion. 1856 DOVE Logic Chr.
Faith 422 note, Scepticism is discrete and proceeds in detail.
3 Gram. & Logic. Of conjunctions: adversative. Of propositions:
discretive. Applied also to the two members of such a proposition,
separated by the adversative conjunction. Obs.
1628 T. SPENCER Logick 237 That Axiome is discrete, that hath a
discrete Coniunction for the band thereof. 1628 T. SPENCER Logick 239
The coniunction which tyes the parts together, is called discrete: and
in this place it imports no more but a thing that keepes two asunder,
for the present. A. 1638 MEDE Apost. latter Times i. Wks. 1672 III. 623
The Words..of my Text [Nevertheless, the Spirit, etc. 1 Tim. iv. 1]
depend upon the last of the former Chapter, as the second part of a
Discrete proposition. 1654 Z. COKE Logick (1657) 119 A discrete
sentence, is, which hath a discrete conjunction; as, although, yet,
notwithstanding, etc. 1664 H. MORE Myst. Iniq. Apol. 538 [It will] run in
this form of a Discrete Axiome, I will have you wait on me at such a
meeting, though your cloaths be old or out of the mode.
4 Metaph. Not concrete; detached from the material, abstract.
1854 Fraser's Mag. L. 343 The mental march from concrete or real
notions to discrete or abstract truths. 1862 H. SPENCER First Princ.
(1870) 27 This formation of symbolic Conceptions, which inevitably
arises as we pass from small and concrete objects, to large and to
discrete ones.
B sb. A separate part.
1890 J. H. STIRLING Gifford Lect. xviii. 353 Break it up into an end-
less number of points..an endless number of discretes.1967 Electronics 6
Mar. 116 Integrated circuits will be turning up routinely in new
products throughout 1967. The big switch from discretes is on.
- discrete,
- early form of DISCREET.
- di'screte, v. Obs. stem of discern re to separate:
see DISCERN.] trans.
- To divide into discrete or distinct parts; to
separate distinctly, dissever.
1646 SIR T. BROWNE Pseud. Ep. II. i. 55 The reason thereof is its
continuity, as..its body is left imporous and not discreted by
atomicall
terminations. 1656 BLOUNT Glossogr., Discreted, severed, parted,
discerned. 1857-8 SEARS Athan. vii. 316 This essential dualism
discretes
for ever the two worlds of spirit and matter.
Last modified: 19 December 1996
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odonnell@cs.uchicago.edu