limiting factor
Americannoun
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Physiology. the slowest, therefore rate-limiting, step in a process or reaction involving several steps.
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Biology. an environmental factor that tends to limit population size.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Imagination was never the limiting factor for Poetic Kinetics creative director Patrick Shearn’s fourth project for Coachella.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 10, 2026
“As clusters scale, data transfer speeds are becoming a limiting factor, increasing the importance of optical components and materials,” he wrote.
From Barron's • Mar. 24, 2026
AI’s limiting factor is no longer algorithms or data — it’s the brute-force physics of data-center expansion.
From MarketWatch • Dec. 3, 2025
“I think that’s gonna be cool and, you know, when we travel, that’s always sort of the limiting factor when we travel internationally.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 15, 2025
That's really the limiting factor to life support.
From "The Martian" by Andy Weir
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
