End (ĕnd), n. [OE. & AS. ende; akin to OS. endi, D. einde, eind, OHG. enti, G. ende, Icel. endir, endi, Sw. ände, Dan. ende, Goth. andeis, Skr. anta. √208. Cf. Ante-, Anti-, Answer.] 1. The extreme or last point or part of any material thing considered lengthwise (the extremity of breadth being side); hence, extremity, in general; the concluding part; termination; close; limit; as, the end of a field, line, pole, road; the end of a year, of a discourse; put an end to pain; — opposed to beginning, when used of anything having a first part.
Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof. Eccl. vii. 8.
2. Point beyond which no procession can be made; conclusion; issue; result, whether successful or otherwise; conclusive event; consequence.
My guilt be on my head, and there an end. Shak.
O that a man might know
The end of this day's business ere it come! Shak.
3. Termination of being; death; destruction; extermination; also, cause of death or destruction.
Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end. Pope.
Confound your hidden falsehood, and award
Either of you to be the other's end. Shak.
I shall see an end of him. Shak.
4. The object aimed at in any effort considered as the close and effect of exertion; ppurpose; intention; aim; as, to labor for private or public ends.
Losing her, the end of living lose. Dryden.
When every man is his own end, all things will come to a bad end. Coleridge.
5. That which is left; a remnant; a fragment; a scrap; as, odds and ends.
I clothe my naked villainy
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ,
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil. Shak.
6. (Carpet Manuf.) One of the yarns of the worsted warp in a Brussels carpet.
An end. (a) On end; upright; erect; endways. Spenser (b) To the end; continuously. Richardson. — End bulb(Anat.), one of the bulblike bodies in which some sensory nerve fibers end in certain parts of the skin and mucous membranes; — also called end corpuscles. — End fly, a bobfly. — End for end, one end for the other; in reversed order. — End man, the last man in a row; one of the two men at the extremities of a line of minstrels. — End on(Naut.), bow foremost. — End organ(Anat.), the structure in which a nerve fiber ends, either peripherally or centrally. — End plate(Anat.), one of the flat expansions in which motor nerve fibers terminate on muscular fibers. — End play(Mach.), movement endwise, or room for such movement. — End stone(Horol.), one of the two plates of a jewel in a timepiece; the part that limits the pivot's end play. — Ends of the earth, the remotest regions of the earth. — In the end, finally. Shak. — On end, upright; erect. — To the end, in order. Bacon. — To make both ends meet, to live within one's income. Fuller. — To put an end to, to destroy.