Word of the Day Archive
Monday October 29, 2007
terminus \TUR-muh-nuhs\ , noun:
1. The finishing point; the end.
2. A boundary; a border; a limit.
3. A post or stone marking a boundary.
4. Either end of a railroad or other transportation line; also, the station house, town, or city at that place.
Rather their train would come up from Southampton to Paddington railway station, the terminus for Queen Victoria's special train whenever she traveled to London from Windsor.
-- Jonathan Schneer, London 1900
Roth had reached a kind of terminus -- the end of the beginning, as it were.
-- Jason Cowley, "The Nihilist", The Atlantic, May 2001
Terminus is from the Latin word meaning "limit or boundary." It is related to term, "a limited period of time," and terminate, "to bring to an end."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for terminus
