discontinuity.

1. A break or interruption that prevents a sequence, process or relationship from being continuous.

2. A point or condition at which a function fails to be continuous.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• historical discontinuity
• discontinuity in a sequence

On the page

The missing records introduced a discontinuity in the account of the institution’s growth.

The essay emphasized historical discontinuity without denying every link between the periods.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic / formal. Forms: Singular discontinuity; plural discontinuities. Often also uncountable. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: definition, comparison, qualification, causal analysis. Disciplines: academic writing, institutional analysis, general research. Commonness: moderately common.