Pl. termini. [L., = end, limit, boundary; also as in sense 2.]
† 1. Math. = TERM sb. 11. Obs. rare.
1571. Digges, Pantom., II. xx. Q iv. When anye proportion is geuen, there are two Numbers wherewithall it is expressed, and they are called Termini.
2. Anc. Rom. Myth. (With initial capital.) The deity who presided over boundaries or landmarks.
1600. Holland, Livy, I. lv. 38. The seat and house of Terminus was not stirred, and he the god alone that was not displaced and called forth of the limits to him consecrated.
1638. Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (ed. 2), 15. This land is the furthest part of the old knowne world, god Terminus here especially triumphing.
3. A statue or bust of, or resembling those of, the god Terminus; also, the pedestal of such a statue: see TERM sb. 15. Sometimes, a boundary post or stone.
1645. Evelyn, Diary, 1 March. Statues and antiquities … amongst which is … a Terminus that formerly stood in the Appian Way.
1754. Phil. Trans., XLVIII. 822. At the several angles of the square was a terminus of marble.
1758. J. Kennedy, Curios. Wilton House (1786), 3. Such Termini were set at their Doors without, as the Limits and Boundaries of their houses.
1842–76. Gwilt, Archit., III. i. § 2686. What is called a terminus, which is, in fact, nothing more than a portion of an inverted obelisk.
4. The point to which motion or action tends, goal, end, finishing-point; sometimes that from which it starts; starting point. = TERM sb. 1 c.
a. 1617. Bayne, On Eph. (1658), 42. This condition belongeth not to the chusing but to the terminus to life.
1651. trans. Life Father Sarpi (1676), 86. That perfection … is the very Terminus whereunto the Church, and every faithful man ought to pretend.
1668. Wilkins, Real Char., III. iii. 310. Some of these are Absolutely determined, either to Motion, or to Rest, or the Terminus of motion.
1868. Lever, Bramleighs of Bp.’s Folly, I. xviii. 271. I go straight to my terminus, wherever it is.
b. esp. in phr. terminus a quo (= ‘term from which’), terminus ad quem (= ‘term to which’).
[Phrases originating in Scholastic L.: a. 1250 in Albertus Magnus, Phys., 5. 2. 2; also in Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, etc.]
a. 1555. Cranmer, Lord’s Supper (Parker Soc.), 272. In nutrition terminus a quo is the hunger and thirst of the man; and terminus ad quem is the feeding and satisfying of his hunger and thirst.
1618. T. Adams, Vict. Patience, Wks. 1861, I. 96. So there is terminus à quo, from whence we are freed; and terminus ad quem, to which we are exalted.
1905. J. R. Harris, Guiding Hand of God, vii. 107. I do not regard death … as a terminus, but more and more as a starting point…. It is a terminus a quo and not a terminus ad quem.
1906. Hibbert Jrnl., Jan., 270. The terminus ad quem, or the end whither the theological movement of our age tends.
5. A boundary, limit. rare.
1673. Ray, Journ. Low C., 122. These Sutures I found … to be the Termini or boundings of certain Diaphragms or partitions, which seemed to divide the Cavity of the Shell into a multitude of … Cells.
1818. Hallam, Mid. Ages (1872), II. vii. II. 233. The retrocession of the Roman terminus under Adrian.
6. The end of a line of railway; also, the station at the end; the place at which a tram-line, etc. ends. (The common current sense.)
1836. Mech. Mag., XXV. 317. Perhaps it would be well to substitute the plain English termination for the Latin terminus.
1837. R. Alderson, in Papers Corps Engineers, II. 94. Both lines commence from the same terminus.
1841. Penny Cycl., XX. 272/1. A class of buildings that have sprung up of late years, namely railway termini.
1848. Longf., in Life (1891), II. 137. Long walk … to the railway terminus on the sea-shore.
1878. F. S. Williams, Midl. Railw., 226. The … competition that arises from the working of two independent routes between the same termini.
1886. C. E. Pascoe, London of To-day, xix. (ed. 3), 192. Hand-bills and time-tables to be easily had at any terminus or railway booking-office in London.
attrib. 1908. Westm. Gaz., 12 March. 10/2. With the coming of railways … came terminus hotels, many of which were now palatial.
b. transf. or gen. An end, extremity; the point at which something comes to an end.
1855. Bain, Senses & Int., I. ii. § 8 (1864), 30. The grey matter [of the brain] is a terminus; to it the fibrous collections tend, or from it commence.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. xxiii. 160. The … glacier pushes its huge terminus right across the valley.
1888. Goode, Amer. Fish, 36. It is frequently found far above the terminus of the tide.
1891. Cent. Dict., Terminus.… 6. The point to which a vector carries a given or assumed point.
1906. Blackw. Mag., May, 461/2. The rugged terminus of England seems to possess a charm of its own.
