Definition of "end"

they followed him... into a sort of a central hall; out of which they could dimly see other long tunnel-like passages branching, passages mysterious and without apparent end.

1908 October, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons

I told him about everything I could think of; and what I couldn't think of he did. He asked about six questions during my yarn, but every question had a point to it. At the end he bowed and thanked me once more. As a thanker he was main-truck high; I never see anybody so polite.

1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 4, in Mr. Pratt's Patients

Confound your hidden falsehood, and award / Either of you to be the other's end.

c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene i]

A safe companion and an easy friend / Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end.

1732, Alexander Pope, (epitaph) On Mr. Gay, in Westminster Abbey

All the ends of the woꝛld ſhall remember, and turne vnto the Lord: and all the kinreds of the nations ſhall woꝛſhip befoꝛe thee.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Psalms 22:27

O that a man might know / The end of this day's business ere it come!

1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act V, (please specify the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)]

The end was that he was thought an archfool.

1876, Great Britain. Public Record Office, John Sherren Brewer, Robert Henry Brodie, James Gairdner, Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII (volume 4, issue 3, part 2, page 3154)

But, losing her, the End of Living lose.

1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe: A Tragedy. […], London: […] T[homas] N[ewcomb] for Henry Herringman, […], published 1676, Act III

When every man is his own end, all things will come to a bad end.

1825, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection in the Formation of a Manly Character, Aphorism VI, page 146

There is a long argument to prove that foreign conquest is not the end of the State, showing that many people took the imperialist view.

1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.21

Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven […] .

1925, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1953

I clothe my naked villainy / With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ, / And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene iii]

And on the seventh day God ended his worke […]

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Genesis 2:2

If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife

c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene iii]

But play the man, stand up and end you, / When your sickness is your soul.

1896, A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad, XLV, lines 7-8

Ending civil wars is hard. Hatreds within countries often run far deeper than between them. The fighting rarely sticks to battlefields, as it can do between states. Civilians are rarely spared. And there are no borders to fall back behind.

2013 November 9, “How to stop the fighting, sometimes”, in The Economist, volume 409, number 8861