[f. next vb.]
1. The conclusion, last stage, termination; also (colloq. or vulgar) the ‘end’ of a man.
1790. Mrs. A. M. Johnson, Monmouth, III. 140. To look upon death … as the finish of your sorrows!
1806. Southey, Lett. (1856), I. 361. Your feeling about Nelson is the right one. It was his proper death, the fit and worthy finish of such a life.
1814. Mad. D’Arblay, Wanderer, V. 318. And here, my dear girl, is the finish of all I have to recount.
1826. Sporting Mag., XVII. 321. You would like to hear what was the finish of the noted Will Barrow. Ibid. (1827), XXI. 78. The finish of the hunting season I unfortunately lost.
b. elliptically in Sporting: The end of a hunt, race, etc.; the death of a fox; also in phrase, to be in at the finish. Also fig.
1875. W. S. Hayward, Love agst. World, 13. The old squire was determined to be in at the finish.
1879. Jefferies, Wild Life in a Southern County, 133. Think for a moment of a finish as it is in reality, and not in these gaudy, brilliant colour-studies.
1891. H. Le Caron, Twenty-five Years in the Secret Service (1893), 188. Although the word dynamite finds no single place in the official records of the assembly, it was in the air and in the speeches from start to finish.
2. That which finishes, or serves to give completeness or perfection to anything.
1793. Copper-Plate Mag., No. 13. The choir received it’s embellishments and finish from Henry the Eighth.
1823. Gr. Kennedy, Father Clem., i. 20. The young Montagues had also been absent—Ernest to obtain that finish to his education which it was then, and it is now, thought could only be acquired by travelling.
1868. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), II. x. 515. Two smaller towers, for the reception of the bells, were designed as the finish of the building to the west.
1890. Matt Crim, The Crucial Test, in Century Mag., XXXIX. Jan., 362/1. She had been sent up to them to have an American finish put to her education and manners; but alien blood flamed in her veins, and she had been worshiped and spoiled in her own home until she had become as imperious and exacting as princesses are supposed to be.
b. Building. The last coat of paint or plaster laid upon a surface.
1823. P. Nicholson, Pract. Build., 417. Over this a coat of oil-colour, prepared with lead, called the finish, is laid.
3. The condition or quality of being finished or perfected.
c. 1805. Mar. Edgeworth, Wks. (Rtldg.), I. 354. There was a want of finish, as the workmen call it, in my manufacture, which made me despair of its being saleable.
1837. H. Miller, Test. Rocks, vi. 229. They could not, compatibly with much nicety of finish, be laid over each other, like the thin horny scales of the salmon or herring.
1876. Humphrey, Coin-Coll. Man., xxvi. 397. High finish could not be obtained in the mode by which this massive money was produced.
1885. H. M. Newhall, A Pair of Shoes, in Harper’s Mag., lxx. Jan. 278. They [gloves] are tanned with sumac and gambier instead of with course bark, as these produce softer finishes.
1885. Manch. Exam., 22 Feb., 5/3. Mr. Reeves sang with perfect finish.
4. slang. A house of entertainment, where the night is finished.
1859. Sala, Tw. round Clock (1861), 17. The dreadful night dens and low revelling houses of past midnight London, the only remnants left among us of the innumerable ‘finishes’ and saloons and night-cellars of a former age, have also their peculiar male population, stamped indelibly with the mint-mark of the place, and not to be found out of it, save in the dock of the adjacent police-court.
1860. Thackeray, Lovel (1869), 204. A weakly little man with Chinese eyes, and pretty little feet and hands, whose pallid countenance told of Finishes and Casinos.
5. (See quot.)
1875. Ure’s Dict. Arts, I. 58. Methylated spirit can be procured also in small quantities … containing in solution 1 oz. to the gallon of shellac, under the name of ‘finish.’
1888. Dumfries Standard, 22 Feb., 3. The traffic in methylated spirit or ‘finish’ as it is popularly called.
