Infinite means without end or limit, going on forever. When mathematicians talk about infinite numbers, they mean a sequence that never stops: you can always add one more. The universe might be infinite, stretching endlessly in all directions, or it might have boundaries we haven't discovered yet.

The word captures something difficult to truly imagine. If you started counting and never stopped, not even to sleep or eat, you still couldn't reach infinity because there's always another number. A circle has infinitely many points along its edge: between any two points, you can always find another one, no matter how close together they are.

People often use infinite more loosely to mean “really, really huge” or “seemingly endless.” A kid might say summer vacation feels infinite on the first day, or that their little brother asks infinitely many questions. In these cases, the speaker means “more than I can count” rather than literally endless.

The opposite is finite, meaning something that has limits or will eventually end. Your patience might feel infinite when you're excited about helping someone, but everyone's patience is actually finite. Understanding the difference between what's truly infinite and what just feels endless can help us think more clearly about the world.