Lim·it n.
 1. That which terminates, circumscribes, restrains, or confines; the bound, border, or edge; the utmost extent; as, the limit of a walk, of a town, of a country; the limits of human knowledge or endeavor.
 As eager of the chase, the maid
 Beyond the forest's verdant limits strayed.   --Pope.
 2. The space or thing defined by limits.
 The archdeacon hath divided it
 Into three limits very equally.   --Shak.
 3. That which terminates a period of time; hence, the period itself; the full time or extent.
    The dateless limit of thy dear exile.   --Shak.
    The limit of your lives is out.   --Shak.
 4. A restriction; a check; a curb; a hindrance.
    I prithee, give no limits to my tongue.   --Shak.
 5. Logic & Metaph. A determining feature; a distinguishing characteristic; a differentia.
 6. Math. A determinate quantity, to which a variable one continually approaches, and may differ from it by less than any given difference, but to which, under the law of variation, the variable can never become exactly equivalent.
 Elastic limit. See under Elastic.
 Prison limits, a definite, extent of space in or around a prison, within which a prisoner has liberty to go and come.
 Syn: -- Boundary; border; edge; termination; restriction; bound; confine.