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From Latin contiguus (“touching”) + -ous, from contingere (“to touch”); see contingent, contact, contagion.

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /kənˈtɪɡ.ju.əs/

  • Audio (US):

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• (Australia) IPA^(key): /kənˈtɪɡ.jʉ.əs/

  • Audio (Australia):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪɡjuəs
• Hyphenation: con‧tig‧u‧ous

contiguous (not comparable)

1. (sometimes figurative) Connected; touching; abutting.
   • 1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries:

     It was in this haphazard way that Mr Carrados was fated to be drawn into the curious Shakespeare case—a gossipy letter from an American friend coupled with the Stratford-on-Avon outrage, and the contiguous circumstance that his secretary's sister happened to be in the council of the 'militants'.

2. Adjacent; neighboring.
   • 1730–1774, Oliver Goldsmith, Introductory to Switzerland

     Though poor the peasant’s hut, his feasts though small,

     He sees his little lot the lot of all;

     Sees no contiguous palace rear its head

     To shame the meanness of his humble shed;

   • 1835, William Scoresby, Memorials of the Sea, page 59:

     […] the usual quietness of the day, with us, was broken in upon by the shout of success from the pursuing boats, followed by vehement respondings from the contiguous ship.

3. Connecting without a break.

   the forty-eight contiguous states

   • 1886, Frank Hamilton Cushing, A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuñi Culture Growth:

     Supposing three such houses to be contiguous to a central one, each separated from the latter by a straight wall.

• contiguity

• coterminous

• “contiguous”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin Eli Smith, editors (1895–1910), “contiguous”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.