terminar

Forms

terminar (first-person singular present termino, first-person singular preterite terminé, past participle terminado)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin termināre (“to mark the bounds of; to end”), a derivative of terminus (“boundary stone; limit”).^{[2][3][4][1][5]} Corominas lists it among the derivatives of término, itself taken from the Latin noun, and dates both to Berceo.^[2][3]

Terreros (1793) gives Italian terminare and French terminer as its equivalents.^[6] The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *term(e)nos and Proto-Indo-European *térmn̥ (“boundary”), the source also of Ancient Greek τέρμα (térma, “goal”).^[1][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas and the BDELC put the first record in Berceo, in the second quarter of the 13th century;^[8] DEMel lists a form terminese in a document of 1206.^[2][3][8] A part of Alfonso X's Estoria de España (dated 1284–1345) has it for “to put an end to”: true penance is the best medicine pora terminar omne of the evil that lasts forever.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The Latin sense “to bound, limit” lived on beside “to end”: in Mexico City in 1582 a lagoon is where one city termina with the other, and in 1778 a province is terminada to the north by the sea.^[10] Autoridades (1739) gives first the intransitive “to be the end or limit of something”, then the transitive “to put an end to”, and the grammatical sense of words that end in a syllable.^[11] Terreros has “to limit” and “to settle a dispute”, and the Academy's 1843 edition adds the medical sense of an illness that runs its course.^[6][12]

The DLE now also records terminar con “to destroy” and “to break up with” a partner.^[4] Corominas notes that terminar has become fully popular and that in parts of the Americas it is more usual than acabar, which can be taken in a bad sense.^[2] In Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua it too is used vulgarly for “to ejaculate”.^[13]

Timeline

• 1206 – a form terminese, as listed by DEMel.^[8]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo, first record according to Corominas.^[3][2]
• 1254 – first occurrence in the HSMS texts.^[14]
• 1284–1345 – a part of Alfonso X's Estoria de España uses it for “to put an end to”.^[9]
• 1499 – the learned exterminar.^[3]
• 1582 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico City, for “to border on”.^[10]
• 1739 – Autoridades says it is taken from Latin terminare.^[11]
• 1843 – the Academy adds the medical sense.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To finish, bring to an end: Terminó la carrera en junio.^[4][1]
2. (transitive) To finish a work with care, give it the final touches.^[4]
3. (intransitive, also pronominal) Of a thing, to end, stop: La reunión terminó tarde.^[4][1]
4. (intransitive) Of an illness, to enter its last stage.^[4]
5. (intransitive, with con) To destroy or wipe out entirely.^[4][1]
6. (intransitive, with con) To break up with someone, especially a partner: Terminó con su novia.^[4][1]
7. (intransitive) To end up: Terminó por aceptar.^[1][15]
8. (pronominal) Of a thing, to be directed towards another as its end.^[4]

Word family

• terminación
• terminante
• terminable
• terminador
• interminable

Related words

• terminal
• término
• determinar
• exterminar
• acabar
• Latin terminō

Usage notes

Moliner notes that in Spain acabar is the more usual of the two verbs.^[15] In the Americas the preference is often the reverse.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 471
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. término
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. terminar
5. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. terminar
6. ^ a b Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 3, 616
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. terminus
8. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. terminar
9. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. terminar
10. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. terminar
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 255
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 696
13. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. terminar
14. ^ Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org, p. s.v. terminar
15. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. terminar