Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The end; the conclusion.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The end; conclusion: a word occasionally, and in former times commonly, placed at the end of a book.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun An end; conclusion. It is often placed at the end of a book.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An end (of a book etc.)

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the concluding part of any performance
  • noun the temporal end; the concluding time

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Latin fīnis.]

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Examples

  • May it not be that, in this generation, the word "finis" is being written to that conception which characterized the 18th and 19th centuries, and may we not he at the beginning of the new and different era of human history?

    The World Crisis and the Outlook 1932

  • In all things the word finis must be written in good season; self-control must be exercised when the matter becomes urgent; the bolt must be drawn on appetite; one must set one's own fantasy to the violin, and carry one's self to the post.

    Les Miserables, Volume I, Fantine 1862

  • In all things the word finis must be written in good season; self-control must be exercised when the matter becomes urgent; the bolt must be drawn on appetite; one must set one's own fantasy to the violin, and carry one's self to the post.

    Les Misérables Victor Hugo 1843

  • I wrote the word finis at the end of the sixty-eighth strip about a week ago.

    The Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas p��re 1836

  • Duchess is disgraced -- all the characters stand in the well-defined semicircle which is the stage method of writing the word "finis" -- Mrs. Yates speaks a very neat and pointed "tag" -- and that's all.

    Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, October 30, 1841 Various

  • In all things the word finis must be written in good season; self-control must be exercised when the matter becomes urgent; the bolt must be drawn on appetite; one must set one’s own fantasy to the violin, and carry one’s self to the post.

    Les Miserables 2008

  • Venianius ad alias finis divisioncs, qu» s rcn judico fore inutiles pro argumento prapsenti.

    Tractatus theologicus de charitate, in quo expenditur systema J.V. Bolgenj de amore Dei. Accedit ... Joseph Chantre Herrera, Giovanni Vincenzo Bolgeni 1792

  • From title to "finis" the book abounds in wit and humor which will make you scream as loud as the eagle on the cover.

    Games For All Occasions Mary E. Blain

  • This was the work with which our battalion, and others, had been occupied and was just about completed when, true to their word, the Heinies started in, systematically, to write "finis" for Dickebusch.

    The Emma Gees Herbert Wes McBride

  • For if genuinely unfit, the fact was speedily demonstrated; whereas if merely shamming, discovery overtook him with a certainty that wrote "finis" to his last hope.

    The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore

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