Link Centre Dictionary

terminate

ter·mi·nate

UK/ˈtɜːmɪnət/ US/ˈtɝmɪnət/ fairly common

verb

1.

bring to an end or halt

  • “She ended their friendship when she found out that he had once been convicted of a crime”
  • “The attack on Poland terminated the relatively peaceful period after WW I”
Synonyms
Antonyms
2.

have an end, in a temporal, spatial, or quantitative sense; either spatial or metaphorical

  • “the bronchioles terminate in a capillary bed”
  • “Your rights stop where you infringe upon the rights of other”
  • “My property ends by the bushes”
  • “The symphony ends in a pianissimo”
Synonyms
Antonyms
3.

be the end of; be the last or concluding part of

  • “This sad scene ended the movie”
Synonyms
4.

terminate the employment of

  • “The boss fired his secretary today”
  • “The company terminated 25% of its workers”
Synonyms
Antonyms

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.

Phrases

  • terminate with extreme prejudice
  • thought-terminating cliché

Related words

Word family

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WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.