Conclude

How to spell conclude

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce conclude

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does conclude mean?

1. verbTo bring something to a close or finish it formally.
2. verbTo arrive at a decision or opinion by reasoning from evidence.

Conclude in a sentence

• The chairman will conclude the meeting at noon.

• From the sales figures we can conclude that demand is rising.

• Both sides hope to conclude the deal before the holidays.

• The auditors had to conclude that the records were incomplete.

Where does conclude come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin verb concludere, which combined the prefix con-, meaning 'together' or 'fully', with claudere, meaning 'to shut' or 'to close'. The literal idea was to shut something up completely, so to bring a matter to a firm close. From the sense of closing a discussion came the further meaning of settling a question and reaching a final judgement, which is why we still 'conclude' both a speech and an argument. English took the word in during the 1300s, partly through legal and scholarly Latin where one would 'conclude' a case or a syllogism. The same claudere root quietly survives in relatives such as 'close', 'include', 'exclude' and 'recluse', and noticing that shared clud spelling helps fix the single c and the -clude ending in memory.

How the word is built

• con- (together, fully)
• clud (from Latin claudere: to shut, close)
• -e