We call a topological space X paracompact if every open covering A of X has a locally finite open refinement B which also covers X.
Paracompactness is a generalization of compactness. This is not immediately obvious, but may be made more clear by giving the following characterization of comapctness:
A
space is
compact iff every
open covering A has a
finite open refinement
B which also
covers X
Note that the difference between this definition of compactness and the definition of paracompactness is only finite vs locally finite.