end
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: ĕnd
ipa: /ɛnd/
enpr: ēnd
ipa: /iːnd/
ipa: /ɪnd/
homophone: Ind (pin–pen merger)
rhymes: -ɛnd
rhymes: -ɪnd
Forms: form: ends
form: ende
Etymology: From Middle English ende, from Old English ende, from Proto-West Germanic *andī, from Proto-Germanic *andijaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂entíos, from *h₂ent- (“front, forehead”).
See also Dutch einde, German Ende, Norwegian ende, Swedish ände; also Old Irish ét (“end, point”), Latin antiae (“forelock”), Albanian anë (“side”), Ancient Greek ἀντίος (antíos, “opposite”), Sanskrit अन्त्य (antya, “last”). More at and and anti-.
The verb is from Middle English enden, endien, from Old English endian (“to end, to make an end of, complete, finish, abolish, destroy, come to an end, die”), from Proto-Germanic *andijōną (“to finish, end”), denominative from *andijaz.
Senses: examples: text: they followed him... into a sort of a central hall; out of which they could dimly see other long tunnel-like passages branching, passages mysterious and without apparent end.
ref: 1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC:
text: I told him about everything I could think of; and what I couldn't think of he did. He asked about six questions during my yarn, but every question had a point to it. At the end he bowed and thanked me once more. As a thanker he was main-truck high; I never see anybody so polite.
ref: 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter IV, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
text: An epidemic of the disease started in Lü-shun at the end of 1927 and extended to April 1928, involving 271 cases with 14 deaths (Migai, 1928).
ref: 1946, Tsai-yu Hsiao, Epidemiology of the Diseases of Naval Importance in Manchuria, Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, →OCLC, page 20:
text: At the end of the garden there was a beautiful fountain.
text: At the end of the story, the main characters fall in love.
glosses: The terminal point of something in space or time.
examples: text: Is there no end to this madness?
text: The new electronic switching system means expanded service and an end to irritances such as cross-talk, line-hum, and being cut off in mid-conversation.
ref: 1986, The Army Communicator, volume 11, number 2, page 46:
glosses: The cessation of an effort, activity, state, or motion.
examples: text: He met a terrible end in the jungle.
text: I hope the end comes quickly.
text: Confound your hidden falsehood, and award / Either of you to be the other's end.
ref: c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:
text: A safe companion and an easy friend / Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end.
ref: 1732, Alexander Pope, (epitaph) On Mr. Gay, in Westminster Abbey
text: Regulators and developers should consider the privacy risks. But more than anything, Sparrow thinks we should all reflect on how we prepare for the end. “My mother has late-stage cancer, she’s clearly thinking about her own death, and so she is going through a process of throwing out all the things she doesn’t want the kids to deal with and prepping her house,” he says.
ref: 2025 March 5, Patricia Clarke, “You and me, we gonna live forever … as avatars, at least”, in The Observer:
glosses: Death.
examples: text: Hold the string at both ends.
text: My father always sat at the end of the table nearest the kitchen.
text: All the ends of the woꝛld ſhall remember, and turne vnto the Lord: and all the kinreds of the nations ſhall woꝛſhip befoꝛe thee.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalms 22:27:
glosses: The most extreme point of an object, especially one that is longer than it is wide.
examples: text: O that a man might know / The end of this day's business ere it come!
ref: 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)]:
text: The end was that he was thought an archfool.
ref: 1876, Great Britain. Public Record Office, John Sherren Brewer, Robert Henry Brodie, James Gairdner, Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII (volume 4, issue 3, part 2, page 3154)
glosses: Result.
examples: text: For what end should I toil?
text: The end of our club is to advance conversation and friendship.
text: But, losing her, the End of Living lose.
ref: 1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe: A Tragedy. […], London: […] T[homas] N[ewcomb] for Henry Herringman, […], published 1676, →OCLC, Act III:
text: When every man is his own end, all things will come to a bad end.
ref: 1825, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection in the Formation of a Manly Character, Aphorism VI, page 146:
text: There is a long argument to prove that foreign conquest is not the end of the State, showing that many people took the imperialist view.
ref: 1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.21:
synonyms: purpose
glosses: A purpose, goal, or aim.
examples: text: The Pavillion End
topics: ball-games
cricket
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: One of the two parts of the ground used as a descriptive name for half of the ground.
examples: text: Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven […].
ref: 1925, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1953, →ISBN, →OCLC:
topics: American-football
ball-games
football
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: The position at the end of either the offensive or defensive line, a tight end, a split end, a defensive end.
topics: ball-games
curling
games
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: A period of play in which each team throws eight rocks, two per player, in alternating fashion.
topics: mathematics
sciences
glosses: An ideal point of a graph or other complex. See End (graph theory)
examples: text: odds and ends
text: I clothe my naked villainy / With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ, / And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.
ref: c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]:
glosses: That which is left; a remnant; a fragment; a scrap.
glosses: One of the yarns of the worsted warp in a Brussels carpet.
examples: text: Don't give them your ends. You jack that shit!
qualifier: African-American Vernacular
glosses: Money.
Synonyms: sense: final point in space or time
word: conclusion
sense: final point in space or time
word: limit
sense: final point in space or time
word: terminus
sense: final point in space or time
word: termination
Hyponyms: word: big end
word: bitter end
word: living end
word: loose end
word: rear end
word: split end
word: the end
word: tight end
word: weekend
word: world's end
sense: A component in place names
word: Audley End
sense: A component in place names
word: Bar End
sense: A component in place names
word: Bourne End
sense: A component in place names
word: Bridge End
sense: A component in place names
word: Bridgend
sense: A component in place names
word: Church End
sense: A component in place names
word: Cliffsend
sense: A component in place names
word: Cliffs End
sense: A component in place names
word: Commercial End
sense: A component in place names
word: Crouch End
sense: A component in place names
word: East End
sense: A component in place names
word: Elmers End
sense: A component in place names
word: Four Lane Ends
sense: A component in place names
word: Hale End
sense: A component in place names
word: Hatch End
sense: A component in place names
word: Heath End
sense: A component in place names
word: Hedge End
sense: A component in place names
word: Hook End
sense: A component in place names
word: Hulme End
sense: A component in place names
word: Hundred End
sense: A component in place names
word: Knott End
sense: A component in place names
word: Knott End-on-Sea
sense: A component in place names
word: Land's End
sense: A component in place names
word: Lane End
sense: A component in place names
word: Lane Ends
sense: A component in place names
word: Lochend
sense: A component in place names
word: Mile End
sense: A component in place names
word: Mill End
sense: A component in place names
word: New End
sense: A component in place names
word: North End
sense: A component in place names
word: Park End
sense: A component in place names
word: Parkend
sense: A component in place names
word: Ponders End
sense: A component in place names
word: Princes End
sense: A component in place names
word: Rood End
sense: A component in place names
word: Shenley Church End
sense: A component in place names
word: Streetly End
sense: A component in place names
word: Town End
sense: A component in place names
word: Townend
sense: A component in place names
word: Wallsend
sense: A component in place names
word: Well End
sense: A component in place names
word: West End
sense: A component in place names
word: Whitlock's End
sense: A component in place names
word: Wood End
sense: A component in place names
word: Woodend
sense: A component in place names
word: World's End
sense: A component in place names
word: Wreaks End
Derived terms: 3′ end
5′ end
abend
all ends up
all good things come to an end
all good things must come to an end
anend
arse end
Arse-end Charlie
arse end of nowhere
at a loose end
at loose ends
at one's fingers' ends
at the end of one's tether
at the end of the day
at the receiving end
backend
back-end
back end
bar end
Bar End
baulk end
beam-ends
begin at the wrong end
beginning of the end
bell-end
bell end
best end
big end of town
blank end
bookend
bottom-end
bring an end to
bring to an end
burn one's candle at both ends
burnt ends
burn the candle at both ends
business end
butt end
by-end
candle-end
Church End
cigarette end
closed-end fund
cod end
coend
come to an end
come to a sticky end
dead-end
deadend
dead end
deep end
dog-end
double-end
draw to an end
end artery
endband
endblown
endboard
end board
endbox
endbrain
endbud
endbulb
end button
end-button
end cap
endcap
end consumer
end-consumer
endcourt
end credits
end-Cretaceous
-ended
end-effector
ender
end feel
end-feel
end-feet
end-foot
end for end
endful
end game
end-game
endgame
endgate
end goal
end grain
endif
end in itself
endism
end item
endknot
end lap
endleaf
end-leaf
endless
endlike
end line
endling
endloader
end lockdown
endly
endman
end mark
endmatcher
end matter
endmember
end member
end-member
endmill
end moraine
endmost
end-node
endnote
endo
end of
end of day
End of Days
end of discussion
end of history
end-of-history illusion
end of life
end-of-life
end of quote
end of story
end of terrace
end of the day
end of the line
end-of-the-pier
end of the rainbow
end of the road
end of the world
end-of-train
end of watch
end-on
end on
end-on-end
end organ
end-organ
endpaper
end piece
endpiece
endpin
endplate
endplay
end point
endpoint
end product
end quote
end result
end rhyme
end run
endsay
end-scraper
endscraper
endsheet
end slate
ends of the earth
ends of the world
endsome
endspan
endspeech
endstage
end state
endstation
endstone
end table
end-tidal
endtime
end times
end titles
end-to-end
end-Triassic mass extinction
end user
end-user license agreement
end user license agreement
endward
endwards
endways
endwise
endwork
end zone
every stick has two ends
extra ends
face like the back end of a bus
fag end
fag-end
follow someone to the ends of the earth
follow someone to the ends of the world
fore-end
forend
beginning to end
front end
front-end
front-end loader
front end loader
front-end processor
fuzzy end of the lollipop
gable end
game-end
genetic dead end
get one's end away
get one's end in
get on the end of
go to the ends of the earth
go to the ends of the world
headend
hear the end of it
high-end
high end
hold up one's end
hot end
idiot end
in at the deep end
in the end
keep one's end up
knob end
knob-end
know which end is up
latter end
light at the end of the tunnel
like the back end of a bus
live end dead end
look beyond the end of one's nose
look past the end of one's nose
loose ends
low-end
make both ends meet
make ends meet
make someone's hair stand on end
means to an end
meet a sticky end
meet one's end
middle-end
month's end
most an end
New End
nob-end
nob end
no end
nose-ender
not know which end is up
not the end of the world
odds and ends
off the deep end
on end
on one's beam ends
on the receiving end
open-end fund
other end
other end of the ball
paired-end tag
play both ends against the middle
pointier end
pointiest end
pointy end
put an end to
rear-end
rear-end collision
rope's-end
rope's end
rough end of the pineapple
scrag end
scrag-end
beyond the end of one's nose
past the end of one's nose
shallow end
sharp end
sharp end of one's tongue
shit end of the stick
shoemaker's end
short end
short end of the stick
show end
small end of the wedge
snitches get stitches and end up in ditches
Southend
Southend-on-Sea
standing end
stand on end
sticky end
stub end
tag end
tail-end
tail end
tailend
the end justifies the means
the end of one's rope
the ends justify the means
thin end of the wedge
think no end of oneself
this is the end
thrombo-end-arterectomy
through the wrong end of the telescope
throw in at the deep end
tie up loose ends
tight end
time of the end
to no end
top-end
top end of town
to that end
to the end of the chapter
to the end of time
to this end
to what end
Townsend
unend
upend
up-end
warp end
war to end all war
war to end all wars
waxed end
wax-end
wax end
week-end
weekend
well end
wet end
without end
wit's end
wits' end
work both ends against the middle
working end
world without end
wrong end of the stick
yearend
year-end