The word 'continence' entered English in the fourteenth century from Old French 'continence,' descended from Latin 'continentia,' meaning 'self-restraint,' 'moderation,' or 'temperance.' The Latin noun derives from 'continēns' (holding together, restraining oneself), the present participle of 'continēre' (to hold together, to contain, to restrain), composed of 'con-' (together) and 'tenēre' (to hold), from PIE *ten- (to stretch).
The word has two main senses in modern English, and both derive from the same Latin metaphor of holding together. The moral/behavioral sense: self-restraint, especially regarding sexual desire. Saint Augustine's famous prayer 'Da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo' ('Give me chastity and continence, but not yet') uses the word in its classical Latin sense of sexual self-control. This was the primary English meaning from the fourteenth through eighteenth centuries. The medical sense: the ability
The connection between these two senses is not merely etymological but conceptual: both involve the ability to restrain an impulse that presses for release. The Latin root 'continēre' (to hold together) applies equally well to holding together one's moral resolve and to holding together one's bodily functions.
The word 'continent' (a major landmass) is the same word applied geographically. Latin 'terra continēns' means 'continuous land' — land that 'holds together' without being broken by sea. The shortening to 'continent' occurred in English by the sixteenth century. The geographical and the moral senses of 'continent' coexisted in English for centuries, and Shakespeare could pun on
The verb 'contain' (to hold within) is the most transparent English descendant of 'continēre.' A container holds things together inside it. Content (as in 'table of contents') refers to what is held inside. 'Content' the adjective (satisfied, at peace) comes from the same source: a content person is one who is 'held together,' not straining to escape their situation. 'Continue' (to hold on, to persist) and
In the '-tain' family (from 'tenēre'), 'contain' stands beside 'sustain' (hold from below), 'obtain' (hold toward), 'maintain' (hold by hand), 'retain' (hold back), 'detain' (hold down), 'attain' (hold to), and 'pertain' (hold through). The prefix 'con-' (together) gives 'contain' its distinctive sense: to hold things together in one place.
The word 'continence' thus encodes one of the oldest moral metaphors: virtue as self-containment, as holding oneself together in the face of forces that would pull one apart. The incontinent person — whether morally or medically — is one who cannot hold together, whose will or body gives way. The continent person, like the continent landmass, remains unbroken.