terminate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin terminātus, the past participle of terminō (“to mark the boundaries of, limit; to bring to an end”),^[2][3][4][5] from terminus (“end, boundary, limit”).^[2][6][5] In Middle English it is recorded only as a past participle.^[2][7] Dictionary.com takes the verb as a use of the late Middle English adjective terminate, limited,^[8] and Barnhart's full dictionary, which dates the verb only from 1589, as probably a back-formation from termination, modelled on the Latin participle.^[9] The OED notes that termination, recorded from 1395, influenced the later development of the verb's senses.^[2][9] An older verb termine, to judge or decide, borrowed from Old French terminer and directly from the Latin, was used from the early 14th century.^[3] It is related to term, terminus and determine.^[5][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

To bring to an end, and also to bound or form the boundary of: both before about 1425, in a translation of Guy de Chauliac's Grande Chirurgie.^[2] The Middle English Dictionary records terminaten for deciding a case or putting an end to an age or to a disease.^[7][3]

Semantic evolution

Early senses were legal and scholastic: to determine or decide (until 1706), and in the 16th and 17th centuries to direct an action or thought towards something as its end.^[2][10] The intransitive "come to an end" is recorded from 1634 for physical things and generally since the 1640s,^[2][3] in 1640 of a word ending in a letter or sound,^[2] and since 1835 of a railway line reaching its terminus.^[2] Johnson (1755) gave "to bound, to limit" before "to put an end to".^[11] The 20th century added euphemisms: ending a pregnancy (from 1887),^[2] dismissing someone from a job (from 1920 in the OED, by 1955 in Etymonline),^[2][3] and, originally in American slang, killing a person, especially an intelligence agent, from 1969, first in terminate with extreme prejudice.^[2][3]

Timeline

• c. 1425 – to bring to an end; to bound or limit (both in a surgical translation).^[2]
• c. 1475 – to determine, decide (obsolete by 1706).^[2]
• 1589 – to state definitely, in Nashe.^[9]
• 1634 – intransitive, of a physical thing, to come to an end.^[2]
• 1640 – of a word, to end in a letter or sound.^[2]
• 1835 – of a railway line, to have its end at a place.^[2]
• 1887 – to end a pregnancy artificially.^[2]
• 1920 – to dismiss from a job.^[2]
• 1969 – to kill, assassinate.^[2][3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To bring to an end; to conclude or put a stop to: The landlord terminated the lease.^[12][5][2]
2. To come to an end: The meeting terminated at noon.^[12][5][2]
3. To form the end or conclusion of something.^[5][2]
4. To end at a place or in a form, as a road, a train or bus route, or a word: This train terminates at the next station.^[12][2]
5. To end a pregnancy by artificial means; to abort.^[12][2]
6. To dismiss someone from employment.^[5][2]
7. (slang) To kill, especially to assassinate.^[2][3]
8. (electronics) To connect a circuit to the end of a transmission line so that it absorbs the signal without reflection.^[12]

Adjective

1. (mathematics) Of a decimal, having a finite number of figures.^[5][2][10]
2. (grammar) Expressing an action as completed or as a whole.^[5][2]

Word family

• terminative
• terminatively
• terminatory

Related words

• termination
• terminator
• terminus
• terminable
• term
• determine
• exterminate
• terminal

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
8. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins