How to Use discontinuity in a Sentence

discontinuity

noun
  • There is a sense of discontinuity between the book's chapters.
  • Dystopic discontinuity, though, turns out not to be her theme at all.
    Ruth Franklin, The Atlantic, 16 Mar. 2020
  • Will the next 24 months create a discontinuity compared to the past year?
    Bernard Fraenkel, Forbes, 26 Apr. 2022
  • That has led to a false discontinuity in the broader view of black freedom struggles.
    Alexis C. Madrigal, The Atlantic, 1 Apr. 2018
  • There is a discontinuity with the governance and (CONI) gave them a full mandate.
    Afp, chicagotribune.com, 1 Feb. 2018
  • In the media world, as in so many other realms, there is a sharp discontinuity in the timeline: before the 2016 election, and after.
    Alexis C. Madrigal, The Atlantic, 12 Oct. 2017
  • Given the scandal wiped more than 40% off the bank’s shares this year and triggered the exit of the previous CEO, discontinuity wouldn’t have hurt.
    Washington Post, 2 Sep. 2019
  • Again, with resilience, there is no room for discontinuity in the new lifestyle module.
    Amber Smith, Discover Magazine, 15 Dec. 2022
  • In 2016, a sharp discontinuity appeared in Chandra’s X-ray maps of the Ophiuchus cluster.
    Dennis Overbye, New York Times, 6 Mar. 2020
  • This discontinuity, called the Moho, is now recognized as the line between Earth’s crust and its mantle.
    Carolyn Y. Johnson, Anchorage Daily News, 6 June 2023
  • This discontinuity, called the Moho, is now recognized as the line between Earth's crust and its mantle.
    Carolyn Y. Johnson, BostonGlobe.com, 6 June 2023
  • The author elects to tell the story in first person present tense, a choice that adds a choppy, staccato feel to things and also underlines some of the narrative discontinuities that creep into the text along the way.
    Eli Gottlieb, chicagotribune.com, 30 May 2017
  • At this degree of sensitivity, fingertips can find discontinuities the mind may not be able to brook.
    Virginia Heffernan, Wired, 21 Jan. 2020
  • At the boundary between the inner and outer core, a.k.a. the Bullen discontinuity, bits of liquid iron and nickel from the outer core interact with material in the inner core and begin to rise.
    Jennifer Leman, Popular Mechanics, 10 Mar. 2021
  • Both Strickland and his band need to tour separately throughout the year to maximize revenue, and that discontinuity isn’t ideal.
    Khari Nixon, SPIN, 20 Feb. 2023
  • Even more so than statistical models and projections, fossils and discontinuities in ancient rock layers tell us a gripping tale of what lies ahead of us.
    Manu Saadia, Ars Technica, 4 Sep. 2017
  • Jiménez’s set was unique in its discontinuity and its courage to abandon preceding ideas and push into new sonic territory.
    Christian Hertzog, San Diego Union-Tribune, 12 Dec. 2022
  • Is there any discontinuity between being deeply religious in a place like Harvard?
    Oliver Staley, Quartz, 25 Jan. 2020
  • There is a yawning discontinuity between zero size and any finite object.
    Quanta Magazine, 22 May 2020
  • The variation in the scaling of each section implies a sense of discontinuity, but also the same spirit of cartographic empiricism that speaks through the wider statistical maps of the 19th century.
    Popular Science, 7 Sep. 2020
  • But it’s easily forgotten that social spending has been drifting higher for decades in the U.S. and a further updrift would not be a discontinuity but a continuity.
    Paul Swartz, Fortune, 23 May 2021
  • But there is no sense of discontinuity in this juxtaposition of the personal and professional.
    Langdon Hammer, The New York Review of Books, 25 Feb. 2020
  • The authors suggest that this was in part due to prior expectations: because plastic spoons are usually light, the heavier spoons clashed with expectations, and that mental discontinuity affected the taste of the food itself.
    Christie Wilcox, Discover Magazine, 26 June 2013
  • The curvature scan can estimate the height deviation of the cloth surface, while the discontinuity scan can effectively detect sharp surface features, such as wrinkles.
    IEEE Spectrum, 19 Feb. 2016
  • Chan said Singapore’s key policies are formed by the leadership team, and apart from the personality and style of the next premier, the direction won’t change dramatically to cause disruption or discontinuity.
    Keith Zhai, Bloomberg.com, 31 Oct. 2017
  • Additionally, machines can take images of layers in multiple light wavelengths to spot folds and other discontinuities in the cores, which helps scientists link together and arrange the layers.
    Christian Elliott, Scientific American, 9 Feb. 2023
  • Banks and electric utilities witnessed the drawbacks to leadership discontinuity after laying off tens of thousands of mostly junior employees during the recessions of the 1980s.
    Bygeoff Colvin, Fortune, 1 Feb. 2023
  • And the candidate of radical discontinuity prevailed in the general election.
    Kevin D. Williamson, National Review, 29 Apr. 2020
  • But shifts from modes of production exhibit some level of discontinuity, insofar as there are diminishing returns once all the land appropriate for that mode of production has been taken over.
    Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 30 Apr. 2010
  • The book stands or falls on its assertion of a radical discontinuity between the antebellum and postbellum United States, but the author himself gives us evidence of continuity.
    Barton Swaim, WSJ, 25 Mar. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'discontinuity.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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