contiguous
adjUK, US /kənˈtɪɡ.ju.əs/ · AU /kənˈtɪɡ.jʉ.əs/
Etymology From Latin contiguus (“touching”) + -ous, from contingere (“to touch”); see contingent, contact, contagion.
1
Figuratively, Sometimes Connected; touching; abutting.
- It was in this haphazard way that Mr Carrados was fated to be drawn into the curious Shakespeare case—a gossipy letter from an American friend coupled with the Stratford-on-Avon outrage, and the contiguous circumstance that his secretary's sister happened to be in the council of the 'militants'.1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries:
2
Adjacent; neighboring.
- 1730–1774, Oliver Goldsmith, Introductory to Switzerland Though poor the peasant’s hut, his feasts though small, He sees his little lot the lot of all; Sees no contiguous palace rear its head To shame the meanness of his humble shed;
- […] the usual quietness of the day, with us, was broken in upon by the shout of success from the pursuing boats, followed by vehement respondings from the contiguous ship.1835, William Scoresby, Memorials of the Sea, page 59:
3
Connecting without a break.
- the forty-eight contiguous states
- Supposing three such houses to be contiguous to a central one, each separated from the latter by a straight wall.1886, Frank Hamilton Cushing, A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuñi Culture Growth:
- Derived terms
- contiguosity, contiguous 48, contiguously, contiguousness, contiguous United States, discontiguous, incontiguous, multicontiguous, non-contiguous, noncontiguous, overcontiguous, pseudocontiguous, semicontiguous, subcontiguous, uncontiguous
- Related terms
- contiguity, coterminous