In mathematics, the concept of a "limit" is used to describe the behavior of a function as its argument either "gets close" to some point, or as it becomes arbitrarily large; or the behavior of a sequence's elements as their index increases indefinitely. Limits are used in calculus and other branches of mathematical analysis to define derivatives and continuity.
The concept of the "limit of a function" is further generalized to the concept of topological net, while the limit of a sequence is closely related to limit and direct limit in category theory.