terminare

Forms

terminare (first-person singular present tèrmino, first-person singular past historic terminài, past participle terminàto, auxiliary (transitive) avére or (intransitive) èssere)^[1] An old form is Old Italian termenare.^[2]

Etymology

It is learned: it is borrowed from Latin terminō (“to mark the boundaries of; to limit, end”), from terminus (“boundary, limit”).^{[3][4][5][6][7][1]} The Latin verb is a denominative of the noun, and its proper sense is “to mark the boundary”.^[2][8] The same Latin verb gave French terminer, recorded from the 12th century.^[7]

The Latin noun was formed from the stem of termen (“boundary stone”), with the zero grade of the suffix that the Sabellic forms also show.^[9] That noun goes back to Proto-Italic *termn̥, from Proto-Indo-European *térmn̥ (“boundary”).^[1]

The computing sense “to stop a program abnormally” is a late 20th-century calque of the English verb terminate.^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT dates the first record to 1295 and the Zingarelli to 1266.^[5][6] DELI's first dated sense, “to complete, bring to an end”, is from Dante (before 1321), who also uses it intransitively: Là dove terminava quella valle (“there where that valley ended”).^[3][12]

Semantic evolution

The Latin sense of marking boundaries lived on in Old Italian: M. Villani (before 1363) tells how the borders between Florence and Bologna furono terminati (“were settled”) by an arbiter.^[3][13] Boccaccio (before 1375) has the intransitive “to come to an end”, and also “to border on” and “to die”.^[3][13][7] In the 15th century the verb could mean “to define, explain”, and in older texts also “to decide”: Pulci writes E terminò passare in Pagania (“and he resolved to cross into heathen lands”).^[7][14][12]

The grammatical sense “to end in (a letter or syllable)” is first recorded by Tommaseo in 1879.^[3] The euphemism terminare i propri giorni means to die, and jokingly is said of a worn-out object.^[5][10] In computing the verb took the sense of the English one at the end of the 20th century.^[10]

Timeline

• 1266 – Zingarelli's date of first record.^[6]
• 1295 – GRADIT's date of first record.^[5]
• Before 1321 – Dante uses terminare for bringing something to an end.^[3]
• Before 1363 – M. Villani uses it for setting boundaries.^[3]
• Before 1375 – Boccaccio uses it intransitively, “to come to an end”.^[3]
• 1879 – Tommaseo records the grammatical sense “to end in”.^[3]
• Late 20th century – The computing sense is borrowed from English.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To finish, complete, bring to an end; also with di and an infinitive: Ho terminato il compito prima di cena.^[5][10][14]
2. (transitive, euphemistic) terminare i propri giorni: to die.^[5][10]
3. (transitive, literary) To complete, to round off.^[10][12]
4. (transitive, archaic) To mark the boundaries of, to delimit.^[5][14][6]
5. (transitive, archaic) To decide, determine; to define, explain.^[14][6][12]
6. (transitive, computing) To terminate a program abruptly after an error or a crash.^[10][11]
7. (intransitive) To end, come to an end, in space or time: Il sentiero termina vicino al fiume.^[5][6][14]
8. (intransitive) To end in a given way or form (with in, con, a); of a road or river, to lead into: La lama termina a punta.^[5][6]
9. (intransitive, linguistics) To end in, to have as ending: I verbi della prima coniugazione terminano in -are.^[5][6][14]
10. (intransitive, uncommon) To border on.^[6][15]

Word family

• terminabile
• terminativo
• terminatore
• terminazione
• terminatura

Related words

• sterminare
• terminale
• termine
• Latin terminus

Usage notes

Used transitively it takes avere; used intransitively it takes essere: ho terminato il lavoro, la riunione è terminata.^[1][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b c d Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3759
8. ^ Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c d e f g h Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
11. ^ a b Vocabolario della lingua italiana Treccani (2011), Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana
12. ^ a b c d Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
13. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET
14. ^ a b c d e f Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
15. ^ Gabrielli, Aldo (2020), Grande dizionario italiano, digital ed., Milano: Hoepli