different between end vs ruin

English

Alternative forms

• ende (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English ende, from Old English ende, from Proto-Germanic *andijaz (compare Dutch einde, German Ende, Norwegian ende, Swedish ände), from Proto-Indo-European *h?entíos (compare Old Irish ét (“end, point”), Latin antiae (“forelock”), Albanian anë (“side”), Ancient Greek ?????? (antíos, “opposite”), Sanskrit ?????? (antya, “last”)), from *h?entíos (“front, forehead”). More at and and anti-.

The verb is from Middle English enden, endien, from Old English endian (“to end, to make an end of, complete, finish, abolish, destroy, come to an end, die”), from Proto-Germanic *andij?n? (“to finish, end”), denominative from *andijaz.

Pronunciation

• enPR: ?nd, IPA^(key): /?nd/
• Rhymes: -?nd

Noun

end (plural ends)

1. The terminal point of something in space or time.
   • 1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows:

     they followed him... into a sort of a central hall; out of which they could dimly see other long tunnel-like passages branching, passages mysterious and without apparent end.

2. (by extension) The cessation of an effort, activity, state, or motion.

   Is there no end to this madness?

3. (by extension) Death.

   He met a terrible end in the jungle.

   I hope the end comes quickly.

   • c. 1592, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Richard the Third, Act II, scene i:

     Confound your hidden falsehood, and award / Either of you to be the other's end.

   • 1732, Alexander Pope, (epitaph) On Mr. Gay, in Westminster Abbey:

     A safe companion and and easy friend / Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end.

4. The most extreme point of an object, especially one that is longer than it is wide.

   Hold the string at both ends.

   My father always sat at the end of the table.

5. Result.
   • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Act V, scene i:

     O that a man might know / The end of this day's business ere it come!

6. A purpose, goal, or aim.
   • 1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe, Act III, scene i:

     But, losing her, the End of Living lose.

   • 1825, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection in the Formation of a Manly Character, Aphorism VI, page 146:

     When every man is his own end, all things will come to a bad end.

   • 1946, Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, I.21:

     There is a long argument to prove that foreign conquest is not the end of the State, showing that many people took the imperialist view.

7. (cricket) One of the two parts of the ground used as a descriptive name for half of the ground.

8. (American football) The position at the end of either the offensive or defensive line, a tight end, a split end, a defensive end.
   • 1926, F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, Penguin 2000, page 11:

     Her husband, among various physical accomplishments, had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven [...].

9. (curling) A period of play in which each team throws eight rocks, two per player, in alternating fashion.
10. (mathematics) An ideal point of a graph or other complex.
11. That which is left; a remnant; a fragment; a scrap.

    odds and ends

    • c. 1592, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Richard the Third, Act I, scene iii:

      I clothe my naked villainy / With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ, / And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

12. One of the yarns of the worsted warp in a Brussels carpet.
13. (in the plural, slang, African-American Vernacular) Money.

    Don't give them your ends. You jack that shit!

Usage notes

• Adjectives often used with "end": final, ultimate, deep, happy, etc.

Synonyms

• (final point in space or time): conclusion, limit, terminus, termination
• See also Thesaurus:goal

Antonyms

• (final point of something): beginning, start

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ???

Translations

Verb

end (third-person singular simple present ends, present participle ending, simple past and past participle ended)

1. (intransitive, ergative) to come to an end

2. (transitive) To finish, terminate.

   • And on the seventh day God ended his worke […]

   • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act II, scene iii:

     If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife

   • 1896, A. E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad, XLV, lines 7-8:

     But play the man, stand up and end you, / When your sickness is your soul.

Conjugation

Translations

Derived terms

• ending
• end up
• never-ending
• unending

Anagrams

• DEN, DNE, Den, Den., NDE, NED, Ned, den, edn., ned

Albanian

Etymology 1

From Proto-Albanian *antis/t, from Proto-Indo-European *h?n?t-jes/t (“to plait, weave”).

Verb

end (first-person singular past tense enda, participle endur)

1. (transitive) to weave

   Synonyms: vej, vegjoj

Derived terms

• endem

Etymology 2

Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h?end?-.

Verb

end (first-person singular past tense enda, participle endur)

1. (intransitive) to bloom, blossom
2. (transitive) to flyblow

Derived terms

• endëc

Related terms

• endë

References

Danish

Etymology 1

From Old Norse enn, probably from Proto-Germanic *þan (“then”), like English than, German denn (“than, for”). For the loss of þ-, cf. Old Norse at (“that”) from Proto-Germanic *þat (“that”)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?n/

Conjunction

end

1. than (in comparisons)

Etymology 2

From Old Norse enn, from Proto-Germanic *andi, from Proto-Indo-European *h?entí.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?n/

Adverb

end

1. still (archaic)

2. (with interrogatives) no matter, ever

3. even (in the modern language only in the combination end ikke "not even")

Etymology 3

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??n?/

Verb

end

1. imperative of ende

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch ende (“end”) with apocope of the final -e.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?nt/
• Hyphenation: end
• Rhymes: -?nt

Noun

end n (plural enden, diminutive endje n)

1. end
2. travel distance
3. a short length of something (such as a stick or a rope)

Synonyms

• einde
• eind

Usage notes

The form end is more informal than both einde and eind and is mainly used colloquially.

Anagrams

• den

Estonian

Pronoun

end

1. partitive singular of ise

Middle English

Etymology 1

From Old English ende.

Noun

end

1. Alternative form of ende

Etymology 2

From Old English endian.

Verb

end

1. Alternative form of enden

Norwegian Bokmål

Verb

end

1. imperative of ende

Norwegian Nynorsk

Verb

end

1. imperative of enda and ende

Vilamovian

Etymology

From Middle High German ende, from Old High German enti.

Pronunciation

Noun

end n

1. end

Antonyms

• ofaong

English

Etymology

From Middle English ruyne, ruine, from Old French ruine, from Latin ru?na (“overthrow, ruin”), from ru? (“I fall down, tumble, sink in ruin, rush”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??u?.?n/
• Rhymes: -u??n

Noun

ruin (countable and uncountable, plural ruins)

1. (countable, sometimes in the plural) The remains of a destroyed or dilapidated construction, such as a house or castle.

   • The Veian and the Gabian towirs shall fall, / And one promiscuous ruin cover all; / Nor, after length of years, a stone betray / The place where once the very ruins lay.

   • a. 1812, Joseph Stevens Buckminster, sermon

     The labour of a day will not build up a virtuous habit on the ruins of an old and vicious character.
2. (uncountable) The state of being a ruin, destroyed or decayed.

3. (uncountable) Something that leads to serious trouble or destruction.
   • 1625, Francis Bacon, Of Youth and Age

     The errors of young men are the ruin of business.

   • The Bat—they called him the Bat. […]. He […] played a lone hand, […]. Most lone wolves had a moll at any rate—women were their ruin—but if the Bat had a moll, not even the grapevine telegraph could locate her.

4. (obsolete) A fall or tumble.
5. A change that destroys or defeats something; destruction; overthrow.
   • 1768, Thomas Gray, The Bard

     Ruin seize thee, ruthless king!

6. (uncountable) Complete financial loss; bankruptcy.

Translations

Verb

ruin (third-person singular simple present ruins, present participle ruining, simple past and past participle ruined or (dialectal, nonstandard) ruint)

1. (transitive) To cause the fiscal ruin of.

   With all these purchases, you surely mean to ruin us!

   • 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

     In one way, indeed, he bade fair to ruin us; for he kept on staying week after week, and at last month after month, so that all the money had been long exhausted...

2. To destroy or make something no longer usable.

   He ruined his new white slacks by accidentally spilling oil on them.

   • 1857, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Golden Mile-Stone

     By the fireside there are old men seated, / Seeing ruined cities in the ashes.

3. To cause severe financial loss to; to bankrupt or drive out of business.

   The crooked stockbroker's fraudulent scheme ruined dozens of victims; some investors lost their life savings and even their houses.

4. To upset or overturn the plans or progress of, or to have a disastrous effect on something.

   My car breaking down just as I was on the road ruined my vacation.

5. To make something less enjoyable or likeable.

   I used to love that song, but being assaulted when that song was playing ruined the song for me.

6. To reveal the ending of (a story); to spoil.
7. (obsolete) To fall into a state of decay.
   • 1636, George Sandys, Paraphrase upon the Psalmes and upon the Hymnes dispersed throughout the Old and New Testaments

     Though he his house of polisht marble build, / Yet shall it ruine like the Moth's fraile cell

8. (transitive, historical) To seduce or debauch, and thus harm the social standing of.

   The young libertine was notorious for ruining local girls.

Synonyms

• destroy
• fordo
• ruinate
• wreck
• See also Thesaurus:spoil

Antonyms

• build
• construct
• found
• produce

Related terms

• ruination
• ruinable
• ruiner
• ruinous
• ruint

Translations

Further reading

• ruin in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• ruin in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• ruin at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• Irun

Asturian

Adjective

ruin m sg (feminine singular ruina, neuter singular ruino, masculine plural ruinos, feminine plural ruines)

1. weedy

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch ruun. This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /rœy?n/
• Hyphenation: ruin
• Rhymes: -œy?n

Noun

ruin m (plural ruinen, diminutive ruintje n)

1. gelding

See also

• hengst

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From Latin ruina

Noun

ruin m (definite singular ruinen, indefinite plural ruiner, definite plural ruinene)

1. ruin (often in plural form when referring to buildings)

References

• “ruin” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From Latin ruina

Noun

ruin m (definite singular ruinen, indefinite plural ruinar, definite plural ruinane)

1. ruin (often in plural form when referring to buildings)

References

• “ruin” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Spanish

Etymology

From an earlier *ruino, from ruina, or from a Vulgar Latin root *ru?nus, ultimately from Latin ru?na. Compare Portuguese ruim, Catalan roí.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?rwin/, [?rw?n]

Adjective

ruin (plural ruines)

1. contemptible, mean, heartless

   Synonyms: vil, despreciable

2. mean, stingy

   Synonyms: avaro, mezquino, tacaño, usurero, agarrado, cicatero

3. wild; unruly

   Synonyms: salvaje, agresto

4. rachitic

   Synonym: raquítico

Swedish

Noun

ruin c

1. a ruin (remains of a building)
2. ruin (financial bankruptcy)

Declension

Related terms

• ruinera

Anagrams

• urin

Tetum

Noun

ruin

1. bone