Terminated

How to spell terminated

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce terminated

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does terminated mean?

1. verbBrought to an end, or formally concluded.

Terminated in a sentence

• The company terminated the contract three months early.

• Her employer terminated her position after the merger.

Where does terminated come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin noun terminus, which literally meant a boundary marker or the limit of something, and even named Terminus, the Roman god who guarded boundary stones. From that noun came the verb terminare, meaning to set a limit, mark a border, or bring to an end. English adopted the verb form 'terminate' in the fifteenth century, taking it through scholarly Latin with its sense of ending or concluding intact. The everyday spelling trap lives in the unstressed middle vowel: the schwa sound in 'ter-mi-nat-ed' tempts writers toward an 'a', when the root termin- demands an 'i'. The same boundary-marking root survives in familiar relatives such as 'terminal', 'terminus', and 'determine', all of which keep that telltale termin- spelling.

How the word is built

• termin- (from terminus: boundary, limit, end)
• -ate (verb-forming suffix)
• -ed (past-tense/participle suffix)