Meaning & use
noncontiguous region
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Meanings
nouncountabletechnical
An area that is not joined to or touching another area of the same kind.
Grammar: Countable: say a noncontiguous region or noncontiguous regions.
Patterns
- a noncontiguous region of something
- be made up of noncontiguous regions
The country is a noncontiguous region: its main landmass is separated from the island by open sea.
Their farmland is a noncontiguous region, split into three parcels by a road and a river.
nouncountablecomputingtechnical
A section of computer memory or of a file whose parts are stored in separate places rather than side by side.
Grammar: Used in computing; often appears in phrases like a noncontiguous region of memory.
Patterns
- a noncontiguous region of memory
- store data in a noncontiguous region
The program writes the log to a noncontiguous region of the disk, which slows reading.
Because the file was saved as a noncontiguous region, the tool had to gather the pieces before opening it.
Word forms
| plural | noncontiguous regions |
|---|
Common combinations
- a noncontiguous region of memory
- The debugger showed a noncontiguous region of memory holding the cached images.
- a noncontiguous region of the country
- The railway links a noncontiguous region of the country to the capital.
- form a noncontiguous region
- The islands form a noncontiguous region that is hard to govern from one city.
- a noncontiguous region of the file
- Backup software treats each noncontiguous region of the file as a separate job.
- split something into noncontiguous regions
- The map was split into noncontiguous regions, so no border was continuous.
Synonyms and how they differ
- discontinuous area
- This stresses that something is broken off rather than simply not touching; it is more common in academic writing.
- detached part
- Use this when the piece has been separated from a whole; it does not suggest a formal geographical unit.
Opposites
Word family
- noncontiguity noun
- the state of not being joined or touching
- noncontiguous adjective
- not joined to or touching something else
- contiguous adjective
- next to and touching something
- contiguity noun
- the state of being next to and touching
Commonly confused: noncontiguous region or noncontinuous? noncontiguous region or discontiguous?
noncontiguous region vs noncontinuous
Noncontinuous means 'not happening without a break', about time; noncontiguous is about space, meaning 'not touching'.
noncontiguous region vs discontiguous
Discontiguous is a rarer spelling used mostly in computing; most writers prefer noncontiguous.
Practice
The islands lie far apart, so the nation is best described as ______.
Choose one answer.
'Noncontiguous' means the parts do not touch, which fits islands far apart. 'Noncontinuous' refers to time, not space; 'contiguous' and 'continuous' both suggest things join or run without a gap, the opposite of what we need.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “noncontiguous region”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.