end

Etymology

From Middle English ende, from Old English ende, from Proto-West Germanic *andī, from Proto-Germanic *andijaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂entíos, from *h₂entíos (“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.

noun

1. The terminal point of something in space or time.
   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. 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 4, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
   At the end of the road, turn left.
   At the end of the story, the main characters fall in love.
2. (by extension) The cessation of an effort, activity, state, or motion.
   Is there no end to this madness?
3. (by extension) Death.
   He met a terrible end in the jungle.
   I hope the end comes quickly.
   A safe companion and and easy friend / Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end. 1732, Alexander Pope, (epitaph) On Mr. Gay, in Westminster Abbey
4. The most extreme point of an object, especially one that is longer than it is wide.
   Hold the string at both ends.
   My father always sat at the end of the table nearest the kitchen.
5. Result.
   The end was that he was thought an archfool. 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)
6. A purpose, goal, or aim.
   For what end should I toil?
   The end of our club is to advance conversation and friendship.
   When every man is his own end, all things will come to a bad end. 1825, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection in the Formation of a Manly Character, Aphorism VI, page 146
   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. 1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.21
7. (cricket) One of the two parts of the ground used as a descriptive name for half of the ground.
   The Pavillion End
8. (American football) The position at the end of either the offensive or defensive line, a tight end, a split end, a defensive end.
9. (curling) A period of play in which each team throws eight rocks, two per player, in alternating fashion.
10. (mathematics) An ideal point of a graph or other complex. See End (graph theory)
11. That which is left; a remnant; a fragment; a scrap.
    odds and ends
12. One of the yarns of the worsted warp in a Brussels carpet.
13. (in the plural, slang, African-American Vernacular) Money.
    Don't give them your ends. You jack that shit!

verb

1. (intransitive, ergative) to come to an end
   Is this movie never going to end?
   The lesson will end when the bell rings.
2. (transitive) To finish, terminate.
   The referee blew the whistle to end the game.
   But play the man, stand up and end you, / When your sickness is your soul. 1896, A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad, XLV, lines 7-8
   Ending civil wars is hard. Hatreds within countries often run far deeper than between them. The fighting rarely sticks to battlefields, as it can do between states. Civilians are rarely spared. And there are no borders to fall back behind. 2013-11-09, “How to stop the fighting, sometimes”, in The Economist, volume 409, number 8861