The Collaborative International Dictionary
End \End\ ([e^]nd), n. [OE. & AS. ende; akin to OS. endi, D. einde, eind, OHG. enti, G. ende, Icel. endir, endi, Sw. ["a]nde, Dan. ende, Goth. andeis, Skr. anta. [root]208. Cf. Ante-, Anti-, Answer.]
-
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. -
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. -
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. -
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. -
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. -
(Carpet Manuf.) One of the yarns of the worsted warp in a Brussels carpet. An end.
On end; upright; erect; endways.
--Spenser-
To the end; continuously. [Obs.]
--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.
Wiktionary
adv. 1 (context idiomatic English) remarkably long; continuously 2 upright; erect; endways
Usage examples of "on end".
He froze, pulse thundering, his fur standing on end as he took in the flat, acrid odor of a high-energy field.
Fik punched the thick pile of cushions, rearranging them over and over, fur still on end, unable to settle.
She grasped the shank and lifted and the air came alive with an eerie, buzzing redness that stood her fur on end.
The secret experiments she had conducted on herself and the others often had put Grevan's hair on end.
Putting the thing in practice can be aggravating, however, and if care is not exercised, something to stand the hair on end.
His father, a priest, and his mother, head of the Christian Women's League, kept a very low profile, and weathered the storm by hiding in the house with the lights off and going to bed very early for weeks on end.
He would stay quite still for hours on end, his eyes tightly closed, as if listening to sounds which no one else could hear.
They provided him with hours on end of conversation with the image of a friendly, helpful, wise teacher talking to him from the desk.
For hours on end, sometimes seemingly for days, their guest and prisoner and lucky charm had harangued the people who had saved his life in an effort to get them to organize search parties, go out into the mountains, and find this mysterious weapon that so obsessed him.