finite

UK/ˈfaɪ.naɪt/US/ˈfaɪ.naɪt/

adjectiveB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,749 of 15,258mostly written

Finite means having a limit that can be reached. A finite number, finite resources, finite patience.

Finite resources is the phrase that carries the environmental argument, and it means the supply runs out rather than merely gets expensive. In mathematics it is exact and the contrast is with infinite, which is not merely very large.

Definitions of finite

1adjectivefiniteHaving a limit that can be reached.B2+
“There is only a finite number of seats, so book early.”

finite is a quality.

Where it comes from

Latin finitus is the past participle of finire, to finish, from finis, an end. Finish and final are relatives.

Latin
fīnītus
Middle English
fynyte
English, today
finite

Built from

fīniō · Latin — to finish; to terminate
fīnis · Latin — boundary

The adjective is derived from Middle English fynyte, finit, from Latin fīnītus, perfect passive participle of fīniō (“to finish; to terminate”), from fīnis (“boundary”). The word displaced Old English ġeendodlīċ. The noun is derived from the adjective.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

finite in the wild

Likewise, whereas every real-valued function on a finite set is bounded and attains its maximum and minimum, every continuous real-valued function on a compact space has these properties.
Compact space
The set of objects studied in discrete mathematics can be finite or infinite.
Discrete mathematics
In mathematics, a finite field or Galois field is a field that has a finite number of elements.
Finite field
The order of a finite field is its number of elements, which is either a prime number or a prime power.
Finite field
Informally, a finite set is a set which one could in principle count and finish counting.
Finite set

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the fīniō family

fine

finite — used about once every 5,163 pages · #9,749 · point at the bar for the others

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