[f. END v.1 + -ING1.]
1. The action of the verb END1: termination, conclusion, completion; † death, etc.
c. 1000. Ags. Gosp., Matt. xiii. 39. Soðlice þæt rip is worulde endung.
c. 1175. Lamb. Hom., 71. God … ȝefe us … riht scrift et ure endunge.
c. 1330. R. Brunne, Chron. (1810), 10. Whan þe Kyng Kynwolf had don his endyng.
a. 1340. Hampole, Pr. Consc., 34. Swa sal he [God] mak endyng Of alle thing.
1375. Barbour, Bruce, III. 276. To bryng All thair empress to gud endyng.
c. 1420. Chron. Vilod., 1. And ȝeve me grace to breng to godde heyndynge.
c. 1485. Digby Myst. (1882), I. 324. I pray god bryng hym to an ille endyng.
1562. Act 5 Eliz., c. 15 § 1. (Ruffhead), The Expiration and Ending of the Statute.
1594. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., I. x. (1611), 33. For the ending of strifes touching matters of Christian beleefe.
1629. Milton, Nativity, 239. Time is our tedious song should here have ending.
1655. Fuller, Hist. Camb. (1840), 139. Her death … did not finally obstruct the ending of St. John’s College.
1766. Entick, London, IV. 34. The terms, or times for pleading and ending of causes in the civil courts.
1818. Cruise, Digest (ed. 2), IV. 72. Every lease must contain a sufficient degree of certainty, as to its beginning, continuance, and ending.
1848. Clough, Bothie, 1. The sports were now at the ending.
1868. Morris, Earthly Par. (1870), II. III. 400. A fair ending crowned a troublous day.
2. The concluding part of a piece of work, a book, etc.; formerly also, of a space of time.
c. 1400. Rom. Rose, 2163. The book is good at the eendyng.
1635. Pagitt, Christianogr., III. (1636), 88. Although we live in the latter ending of the world.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), I. 114. The Dialogue fails in unity, and has not a proper beginning, middle, and ending.
3. The last part or termination of an organic structure; an extremity.
1884. Bower & Scott, De Bary’s Phaner. & Ferns, 232. With blind endings only in the growing-points and at the ends of peripheral branches.
4. The concluding part of a word, of a metrical line, piece of music, etc.; also, an inflexional or formative suffix.
1599. Shaks., Much Ado, V. ii. 40. I can finde out no rime to Ladie but babie, an innocent rime: for scorne, horne, a hard time: for schoole foole, a babling time: verie ominous endings.
1814. L. Hunt, Feast of Poets (1815), 7. But volumes of endings, lugg’d in as you need ’em, Of hearts and imparts.
1857. Helmore, Psalter Noted, Pref. viii. Each of the Tones … has a variety of endings.
1864. Reader, 24 Sept., 375/3. Replacing all the endings of its oblique cases by their prepositional values.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), I. Introd. p. xiii. The want of case endings.
5. attrib.; esp. † ending-day, the day of death; † ending-post, the winning-post; ending-stone, (U.S.), a particular kind of millstone (see quots.).
Chart. Thurkytel, in Cod. Dipl., IV. 294. Bute he it ðe deppere bete er his ending day.
c. 1320. Sir Tristr., 1672. Her loue miȝt no man tvin Til her endingday.
1523. Ld. Berners, Froiss., I. cccxxxii. 520. At last came his endyng day.
1760. R. Heber, Horse Matches, ix. 29. As she or they come in by the ending post each heat.
1791. ‘G. Gambado,’ Acad. Horsem., xv. (1809), 126. One was seen to arrive at the ending Post without his bridle.
1883. E. Ingersoll, in Harper’s Mag., June, 76/1. Now the ending-stones are encountered, which break the germinal point off each grain.
