Forms: 4 finch, 4–6 fenys, fen-, fynissh, -ysch, -ysh, -ysshe, -esch, 4 finisch, 6– finish. [ME. fenys, finisch, a. OF. feniss- (Fr. finiss-) lengthened stem of fenir (finir) = Pr. fenir, Cat. finir, It. finire:—L. fīnīre, f. fīnis end.]
1. trans. To bring to an end; to come to the end of, go through the last period or stage of. Often with gerund (formerly with inf.) as object: To ‘make an end of,’ cease (doing something). † Also, rarely, To put an end to, cause to cease.
c. 1350. Will. Palerne, 3934. Þus was þat ferli fiȝt · finched þat time.
a. 1400[?]. Morte Arth., 4255. Qwene they had ffenyste þis feghte.
1481. Caxton, Mirrour of the World, I. xx. 60. Thus gooth and cometh the sonne, the whiche neuer shal haue reste ne neuer shal fynysshe to goo with the heuen, lyke as the nayle that is fixed in the whele, the whiche torneth whan she torneth.
a. 1533. Ld. Berners, Huon, lv. 185. Who so euer dyd fyght agaynst him were lyke myserably to fynysshe his days.
1603. Drayton, Bar. Wars, VI. 87.
| In Death what can be, that I do not know, | |
| That I should fear a Couenant to make | |
| With it, which welcom’d, finisheth my Woe? |
1697. Dryden, Virg. Georg., IV. 673.
| He call’d, sigh’d, sung, his Griefs with Day begun, | |
| Nor were they finish’d with the setting Sun. |
1796. H. Hunter, trans. St. Pierre’s Studies of Nature (1799), III. 567. It [positive ambition] produces avarice, that calm ambition of gold, in which all the ambitious finish their course.
1847. Marryat, Childr. N. Forest, viii. Edward then set to with a good appetite at the viands which had been placed before him, and had just finished a hearty meal.
1891. E. Peacock, N. Brendon, I. 256. As he finished speaking.
b. To finish off; to provide with an ending (of a certain kind).
1834. H. N. Coleridge, Grk. Poets (ed. 2), 51. Plutarch finishes off the story in his usual manner.
2. To bring to completion; to make or perform completely; to complete. Also with off, † up. † To finish to (do): to succeed completely in (doing).
a. 1400–50. Alexander, 2144. For quen I done haue with Dary & my dede fenyschid.
c. 1489. Caxton, Blanchardyn, xi. 41. Hys enterpryse that ful sore he desyred to fynysshe.
a. 1533. Ld. Berners, Huon, lxii. 217. Whan the sacrement of baptysme was fynyshyd, the pope hymselfe sange masse.
1556. Chron. Gr. Friars (Camden), 84. In August [1553] was the aulter in Powlles set up agayne, and fenysyd in September.
1593. Shaks., 3 Hen, VI., II. v. 28.
| How many Dayes will finish vp the Yeare, | |
| How many Yeares, a Mortall man may liue. |
1594. Carew, Huarte’s Exam. Wits (1616), 269. And this is so very true, that if when nature hath finished to forme a man in all perfection, she would conuert him into a woman, there needeth nought els to be done, saue only to turne his instruments of generation inwards.
1648. W. Mountague, Devoute Ess., I. xviii. § 3. 336. They expose themselves to the reproach of having begun what they were unable to finish.
1669. J. Worlidge, Syst. Agric. (1681), 185. Yet have I not finished to attain the right Method, or way of ordering them, as I principally aim at.
1761–2. Hume, Hist. Eng. (1806), III. xlvii. 694. The marriage of the princess Elizabeth with Frederic, elector palatine, was finished some time after the death of that prince, and served to dissipate the grief which arose on that melancholy event.
1816. J. Smith, The Panorama of Science and Art, II. 686. Finish sowing greenhouse plants.
1828. Scott, F. M. Perth, iii. He cuts all his gloves out for the right hand, and never could finish a pair in his life.
1848. C. K. Sharpe, Let., 7 Feb. (1888), II. 590. I have the shame to be descended (from father to son) from that bloody-minded person who finished off the work which King Robert had bungled.
absol. 1611. Bible, 1 Chron. xxvii. 24. Ioab … began to number, but he finished not.
1856. Ruskin, Mod. Paint., III. IV. ix. § 5. Let all the ingenuity and all the art of the human race be brought to bear upon the attainment of the utmost possible finish, and they could not do what is done in the foot of a fly, or the film of a bubble. God alone can finish; and the more intelligent the human mind becomes, the more the infiniteness of interval is felt between human and divine work in this respect.
3. To deal with or dispose of the whole or the remainder of (an object); to complete the consumption of (food, one’s stock of anything), the reading of (a book, etc.).
1526. Tindale, Matt. x. 23. Ye shal nott fynysshe all the cites of israhel tyll the sonne of man be come.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., I. xxxi. 434. He and Brooks will doubtless finish the two [potatoes] I have got out, and then there will be left twelve.
1884. F. M. Crawford, Rom. Singer, I. 72. Would you mind finishing the canto?
b. To complete the destruction of; to dispatch, kill. Also in weaker sense: To complete the discomfiture or defeat of; to reduce to complete exhaustion or helplessness. Now chiefly colloq.
1611. Bible, Dan. v. 26. God hath numbred thy kingdome, and finished it.
1755. Mem. Capt. P. Drake, I. xvii. 187. I was riding about the Field in quest of them, and was surrounded by five Germans, who were resolved to finish me, which they certainly would have done, had I not been very well mounted, and pretty strong.
1816. Sporting Mag., XLVIII. 181. Lancaster … was completely finished.
1840. Goodrich, Peter Parley’s Annual, 188. He was, however, only wounded. But when the picquet came up, they were for finishing him outright with their bayonets: this, however, Ellerby would, by no means, allow—he thought of his mother.
1864. Lowell, Fireside Trav., 308. If he still obstinates himself, he is finished by being made to measure one of the marble putti, which look like rather stoutish babies, and are found to be six feet, every sculptor’s son of them.
1884. E. P. Roe, Nat. Ser. Story, ix. The moist sultriness of the Fourth finished the ox-heart cherries.
4. To perfect finally or in detail; to put the final and completing touches to (a thing). Also with off, up.
1551. T. Wilson, Logike (1580), 39 b. These [the hands, arms and feet] be called partes integrales, that is to saye, the partes whiche finishe the whole and make it perfecte.
c. 1555. Harpsfield, Divorce Hen. VIII. (1878), 80. To perfect and finish our answer to the fourth chapter we make a direct contrary to them, but yet a true conclusion, which is, that, the premisses considered, no man ought to approve and commend the determination of these Universities, which do hold and conclude that to marry her whom the brother departed without children hath left is so forbidden by the law of God and also by the law of nature that the Pope hath no authority or power to dispense with such marriages whether they be contracted already or are to be contracted.
1611. Bible, 2 Cor. viii. 6. Wee desired Titus, that as he had begun, so hee would also finish in you the same grace also.
1683. Soames, trans. Boileau’s Art of Poetry, ii. 20.
| A faultless Sonnet, finish’d thus, would be | |
| Worth tedious Volumes of loose Poetry. |
1703. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., 249. They finish the Plastering when it is almost dry, either by Trowelling and brishing it over with fair Water…. And also brish over their new Plastering when they set, or finish it.
1713. Steele, Englishm., No. 7, 20 Oct., 45. To a good natural Discernment Art must therefore be joined to finish a Critick.
1807. W. Taylor, in Ann. Rev., V. 713/2. Raphael had the early education of a Dutch painter. He was compelled by his father to finish up his pottery minutely.
1816. J. Smith, The Panorama of Science and Art, I. 17. The hole may be finished with a file, or by hammering it at a low heat upon a smooth mandrel or pin.
1842. [see FINGER-NAIL].
absol. 1852. Mrs. Carlyle, Lett., II. 187. It was well to get out into space yesterday, for the plasterers were rushing about like demons, finishing off, and clearing away their scaffoldings, &c., and the plumbers were once more boiling lead in the kitchen, to repair some spout on the roof.
b. To complete or perfect the education of (a person).
1734. trans. Rollin’s Anc. Hist. (1827), IX. v. 169. Rome, haughty as she was, acknowledged this glorious empire. She sent her most illustrious citizens to be finished and refined in Greece.
1796. Dr. Burney, Metastasio, I. 214, note. Most of the great singers, male and female, of the first forty or fifty years of the present century, had been formed or finished by him.
1814. Jane Austen, Watsons, vii. (1879), 215. I was so much indulged in my infant years that I was never obliged to attend to anything, and consequently am without the accomplishments which are now necessary to finish a pretty woman.
a. 1839. Praed, Poems (1864), II. 158, ‘Portrait of a Lady.’
| Where were you finished? tell me where! | |
| Was it at Chelsea, or at Chiswick? | |
| Had you the ordinary share | |
| Of books and backboard, harp and physic? |
c. To complete or perfect the fatting of (cattle).
1841. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., II. II. 226. The cattle, which are partially fed on the moorlands during the summer, are bought up by the farmer of the arable lands, and thus by means of the turnip are ‘finished out’ and in a proper state for the butcher in the spring of the year. Ibid. (1851) XII. II. 334. Many flockmasters ‘finish’ their sheep before selling. Ibid. (1865), Ser. II. I. II. 259. If the lambs are well summered it will answer to finish them off in the house or yards.
† d. With complement or into: To make into by a final operation. Obs.
1704. Swift, Batt. Bks. (1747), 185. All Arts of civilizing others render thee rude and untractable; Courts have taught thee ill Manners, and polite Conversation has finish’d thee a Pedant.
1812. W. Taylor, in Monthly Mag., XXXIV. Dec., 410/1. According to the Millenarians, at the end of the world, this earth is to be finish’d up into one vast terrestrial paradise.
5. intr. To come to an end, reach the end; to cease, leave off. Also with off. Also, to end in (something), to end by (doing something).
c. 1450. Merlin, iii. 54. They sey thei shull neuer fenisshe till thei haue a-vengid the deth of Aungis.
c. 1489. Caxton, Sonnes of Aymon, ix. 248. And beganne to make so grete a sorowe as thoughe all the worlde had fynysshed a fore his eyen.
1503. Hawes, The Example of Virtue, xi. 212.
| But at the last I dyd hym vaynquysshe | |
| Dryuynge hym home to his derke regyon | |
| Of infernall payne that shall not fynysshe | |
| For hell is called his propre mancyon. |
1527. R. Thorne, His Booke, in Hakluyt, Voy. (1589), 253. Which maine land … finisheth in the land which we found.
1563. Shute, Archit., D j a. Wherwith finisheth the first.
1591. Shaks., 1 Hen. VI., III. i. 201.
| Exeter doth wish, | |
| His dayes may finish, ere the haplesse time. |
1788. Franklin, Autobiog., Wks. 1840, I. 143. Partnerships often finish in quarrels.
1839. Landor, Wks. (1868), I. 205/2. Johnson. If we begin to reinstate old words, we shall finish by admitting new ones.
1863. Kingsley, Water Bab., 10. Finishing off somewhere between twelve and four.
1881. The Saturday Review, LI. 25 June, 818/1. Lord Rosebery won the New Stakes for two-year-olds, with his filly Kermesse, who finished a couple of lengths in front of Kingdom and four lengths in front of Shrewsbury, two colts which are considered far above the average.
† b. To finish with: (a) To cease to deal with, have done with (obs.); (b) to complete one’s work at or upon.
1782. Miss Burney, Cecilia (1809), IV. 62. He approved much of her finishing wholly with the old Don.
1833. Southey, Life (1850), V. 139. To-night I shall finish with Queen Mary’s reign; Elizabeth’s will require not a long chapter; James’s a short one.
† c. To die. Obs.
1578. T. Nicholas, trans. Conq. W. India (1596), The Epistle, p. iv. Considering that all flesh must finish, I seek for no quiet rest in this transitorie life.
1611. Shaks., Cymb., V. v. 36.
| These her Women | |
| Can trip me, if I erre, who with wet cheekes | |
| Were present when she finish’d. |
† 6. trans. (After L. finire.) To assign a limit or boundary to; to limit. Obs. rare–1.
1587. Golding, De Mornay, iv. 47. In such sort infinite, as all the infinitenesse thereof bee comprehended within bounds as to himselfe, that is to say, so as he finish or bound himselfe, because he neither is nor hath any thing without himself.
