[OE. west-ende (see WEST adv.) = Du. westeinde, WFris. westein, MLG., G. westende. In later use f. WEST a.]
1. The western end or extremity of anything.
c. 893. K. Ælfred, Oros., I. i. § 3. Hire on westende is Scotland.
c. 1050. O. E. Chron. (MS. C), an. 1036. Syððan hine man byriʓde … æt þam west ende, þam styple ful ʓehende.
a. 1225. Ancr. R., 244. Toward þe west ende of þe worlde.
a. 1400–50. Wars Alex., 1733. A selly nounbre Of wrichis & wirlingis out of the west endis.
1408–17. in Rec. St. Mary at Hill (1905), Introd. p. xcvi. A Tent withowt the west ende of the church yerd made of Clothe.
a. 1500. Leland, Itin. (1764), II. 7. The West Ende of Ewelm Paroche Chirch. Ibid., IV. 124. There be 2. Wooden Bridges at the West Ende of the Towne.
1591. Shaks., Two Gent., V. iii. 9. Goe thou with her to the West end of the wood.
a. 1700. Evelyn, Diary, 25 March 1644. Having two spires and middle lanterne at the West end.
1711. Lond. Gaz., No. 4906/3. We met an English Runner off the West-end of this Island [Jamaica].
1782. Miss Burney, Cecilia, III. iv. He privately took a lodging at the west end of the town.
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., vi. The west end of the defile formed by the Luckenbooths was secured in the same manner.
1847. [see RESPOND sb. 2].
1848. Dickens, Dombey, vii. A fashionable neighbourhood at the west end of the town.
1874. Micklethwaite, Mod. Par. Churches, 59. The upper row of stalls at the west end of the chancel.
2. spec. The West End, that part of London lying westward of Charing Cross and Regent St. and including the fashionable shopping district, Mayfair, and the Parks; also, those living within this area.
1807. trans. Goede’s Trav., I. 38. The devices at the west end, are usually crowns, stars, crescents.
1815. Zeluca, III. 143. As you’re staying with a relation at the west end … there’s no harm in making a genteel acquaintance-ch?
1835. Dickens, Sk. Boz, Dancing Academy. It was not in the West-end at all—it rather approximated to the eastern portion of London.
1863. O. W. Holmes, Old Vol. Life (1891), 97. We know what the West End of London wishes may be result of this controversy.
1882. Besant, All Sorts, vii. She was setting up a dressmaker’s shop;… she had hopes of support, even from the West End, where she had friends.
3. transf. The fashionable or aristocratic quarter of a town or other place.
1823. Byron, Juan, XI. xlv. The great world … Meaneth the west or worst end of a city.
1830. Carlyle, Misc. Ess., Richter (1872), III. 35. Richter, for his part, was quite excluded from the West-end of Hof: for Hof too has its West-end…. So poor Richter could only be admitted to the West-end of the Universe.
Hood, Up the Rhine, 159. There was, however, a sort of West-end to the room, where the fashionables and the Vons seemed instinctively to congregate.
1854. trans. Hettner’s Athens & Pelop., 28. This is the fashionable part, or ‘west end’ of New Athens.
1863. Speke, Source Nile, xii. 339. A number of huts … were at once assigned to me, on the face of a hill…. It was considered the ‘West End.’
4. attrib. (from senses 2 and 3.)
1835. Court Mag., VI. 4/1. A refuge for the West-end destitute of all denominations.
1848. Dickens, Dombey, i. Doctor Parker Pep’s West End practice.
1863. Miss Braddon, Aurora Floyd, xxxiii. A colour that West-End tailors had vainly striven to emulate.
1888. Encycl. Brit., XXIV. 28/1. Spacious west-end quarters in cities.
1889. Lowell, Latest Lit. Ess. (1891), 67. With that West-End view of the realities of life which Englishmen of a certain class feel it proper to take.
Hence West-ender, one who lives at the west end of a town, esp. of London; West-endian = prec.; West-endish a., of or characteristic of the West End; West-endism, West-end quality or character.
1839. Dickens, Nickleby, xxxvii. A pleasant fiction invented by jealous *West-enders.
1874. H. Mayhew, Lond. Characters, 299. Already there is a sort of esprit de locale (if we may so express it) amongst the inhabitants of the new quarters that the old West Ender never dreamed of.
1825. Hor. Smith, Gaieties & Grav., II. 322. *West-endians and Bond-street loungers.
1909. Daily Chron., 9 June, 5/4. An advanced … *West-endish sort of woman.
1875. Blackie, Introd. to C. Blackie’s Etymol. Geog., 33. Such-like apish mimicry of metropolitan *West Endism.
