Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To bring to an end or halt.
  • intransitive verb To occur at or form the end of; conclude or finish: synonym: complete.
  • intransitive verb To discontinue the employment of; dismiss.
  • intransitive verb To murder or assassinate (someone).
  • intransitive verb To come to an end; reach a stopping point.
  • intransitive verb To form an end or produce a result. Often used with in.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To bound; limit; form the extreme outline of; set a boundary or limit to; define.
  • To end; put an end to.
  • To complete; put the closing or finishing touch to; perfect.
  • Synonyms To close, conclude.
  • To be limited in space by a point, line, or surface; stop short; end.
  • To cease; come to an end in time; end.
  • Capable of coming to an end; limited; bounded: as, a terminate decimal. A terminate number is an integer, a mixed number, or a vulgar fraction. See interminate.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To be limited in space by a point, line, or surface; to stop short; to end; to cease.
  • intransitive verb To come to a limit in time; to end; to close.
  • transitive verb To set a term or limit to; to form the extreme point or side of; to bound; to limit.
  • transitive verb To put an end to; to make to cease.
  • transitive verb Hence, to put the finishing touch to; to bring to completion; to perfect.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive or intransitive, formal To finish or end.
  • verb transitive, euphemistic To kill.
  • verb transitive, euphemistic To end the employment contract of an employee; to fire or lay off.
  • adjective Terminated; limited; bounded; ended.
  • adjective Having a definite and clear limit or boundary; having a determinate size, shape or magnitude.
  • adjective mathematics Expressible in a finite number of terms; (of a decimal) not recurring or infinite.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb terminate the employment of; discharge from an office or position
  • verb be the end of; be the last or concluding part of
  • verb have an end, in a temporal, spatial, or quantitative sense; either spatial or metaphorical
  • verb bring to an end or halt

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin termināre, termināt-, from terminus, end.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin terminatus, past participle of terminare ("to set bounds to, bound, limit, end, close, terminate"), from terminus ("a bound, limit, end"); see term, terminus. Compare termine.

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