limit vs pigeonhole

limit

noun
  • A determining feature; a distinguishing characteristic. 

  • A restriction; a bound beyond which one may not go. 

  • The cone of a diagram through which any other cone of that same diagram can factor uniquely. 

  • Fixed limit. 

  • The final, utmost, or furthest point; the border or edge. 

  • The first group of riders to depart in a handicap race. 

  • A person who is exasperating, intolerable, astounding, etc. 

  • A value to which a sequence converges. Equivalently, the common value of the upper limit and the lower limit of a sequence: if the upper and lower limits are different, then the sequence has no limit (i.e., does not converge). 

  • Any of several abstractions of this concept of limit. 

verb
  • To restrict; not to allow to go beyond a certain bound, to set boundaries. 

  • To have a limit in a particular set. 

adj
  • Being a fixed limit game. 

pigeonhole

noun
  • A category. 

  • One of an array of compartments for housing pigeons. 

  • One of an array of compartments for receiving mail and other messages at a college, office, etc. 

  • One of an array of compartments for storing scrolls at a library. 

  • A similar compartment in a desk, used for sorting and storing papers. 

verb
  • To categorize; especially to limit or be limited to a particular category, role, etc. 

  • To put aside, to not act on (proposals, suggestions, advice). 

How often have the words limit and pigeonhole occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )