Terminus

How to spell terminus

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce terminus

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does terminus mean?

1. nounThe final station or stop at the end of a railway, bus, or coach route.
2. nounThe final point, limit, or end of something such as a process or boundary.

Terminus in a sentence

• The train sat empty at the terminus after the last passengers left.

• The survey marked the terminus of the property along the old stone wall.

• Every bus on this route ends its journey at the city terminus.

• Retirement felt like the natural terminus of his long career.

Where does terminus come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes straight from the Latin terminus, which literally meant a boundary marker, a limit, or the end of something; the Romans even worshipped a minor god named Terminus who guarded the boundary stones between fields and properties. From the idea of a fixed border, the sense broadened to mean any endpoint or final limit. English took the word over almost unchanged in the early 1600s, keeping the Latin spelling and the Latin plural 'termini'. The same termin- root sits inside a whole family of familiar words, including 'term' (a fixed period), 'terminate' (to bring to an end), and 'determine' (to set a limit on a question), which is a useful reminder that the spelling keeps that single 'r' and a single 'm'. By the nineteenth century, with the spread of the railways, terminus settled into its best known modern job: the last station at the end of a line.

How the word is built

• termin- (boundary, limit, end)
• -us (Latin noun ending)