general, an appellation given to things continued without interruption; in which sense we say, continent fever, &c.

geography, a great extent of land not interrupted by seas, in contradistinction to island and peninsula, &c. See Geography.

Contingent, something casual or unusual. Hence future contingent, denotes a conditional event which may or may not happen, according as circumstances fall out.

Contingents are sometimes used by mathematicians in the same sense as tangent. See Tangent.