Added 9 October 2026
terminate
/ˈtɜːmɪneɪ̯t/ verb
In Latin: aboleō Wiktionary
verb Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about terminate at Wordnik → Where our words come from →
-
Bring to an end or halt.
She ended their friendship when she found out that he had once been convicted of a crime
-
Have an end, in a temporal, spatial, or quantitative sense; either spatial or metaphorical.
the bronchioles terminate in a capillary bed
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Be the end of; be the last or concluding part of.
This sad scene ended the movie
Origin
From Middle English terminaten (“to bring to an end; to adjudicate; to end, stop; to border, confine, contain”) from terminat(e) (“bounded”, also used as the past participle of terminaten) + -en (verb-forming suffix), borrowed from Latin terminātus, perfect passive participle of terminō (“to set bounds to, bound, limit, end, close, terminate”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from terminus (“a bound, limit, end”) + -ō (verb-forming suffix); see term, terminus. Doublet of termine, cognate with French terminer.
From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)