Meaning & use
limiting
Last updated
Meanings
adjectivecomparable
Keeping someone or something from growing, changing or doing as much as they could.
Grammar: Used before a noun or after be: a limiting belief, the rule is limiting.
Patterns
- a limiting factor
- feel limiting
Poor soil is a limiting factor for the farm.
She felt that the small office was too limiting for her ideas.
Strict dress codes can be limiting for creative workers.
adjectivebefore a nountechnical
In science, setting the upper boundary on how much of something can happen, as when one resource controls how fast a process runs.
Grammar: Used before a noun in science: a limiting reagent, a limiting nutrient.
Patterns
- limiting reagent
- limiting nutrient
In the experiment, the limiting reagent ran out first, so the reaction stopped.
Water is the limiting resource for plants in the desert.
Nitrogen is the limiting nutrient in many lakes.
Common combinations
- limiting factor
- Time is the limiting factor in this project.
- limiting belief
- Her coach helped her let go of a limiting belief about her talent.
- limiting reagent
- Calculate the amount of product from the limiting reagent.
- feel limiting
- After a year, the job began to feel limiting.
- limiting condition
- A lack of funds is a limiting condition for the research.
Synonyms and how they differ
- restrictive
- Restrictive stresses rules or controls that stop you acting freely, while limiting can describe any thing that holds you back, including a feeling or a lack of resources.
- confining
- Confining suggests being held in a small space or tight situation, and is more physical or emotional than limiting.
- constraining
- Constraining is more formal and usually describes a force that presses on a choice or action.
- inhibiting
- Inhibiting describes something that holds back a natural process or feeling, often with a psychological sense.
Opposites
Word family
- limit noun
- a point beyond which something cannot go
- limit verb
- to keep something within a boundary
- limitation noun
- a weakness or a rule that restricts something
- limited adjective
- small in amount or extent
- limitless adjective
- having no limit
Commonly confused: limiting or limited?
limiting vs limited
Limited describes something small or restricted in amount, while limiting describes something that actively holds you back.
Practice
The cost of materials was the ____ factor in how big we could build the shed.
Choose one answer.
A limiting factor is the thing that sets the maximum. Limitation is a noun and cannot stand before factor in this way, and limitless means the opposite.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “limiting”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.