ending

[en-ding]

noun

1. a bringing or coming to an end; termination; close.

   Putting away the Christmas ornaments marked the ending of the season.

2. the final or concluding part; conclusion.

   a story with a happy ending.

3. death; destruction.

4. Grammar.,  a morpheme, especially an inflection, at the end of a word, as -s in cuts.

5. (not in technical use) any final word part, as the -ow of widow.

ending

/ ˈɛndɪŋ /

noun

1. the act of bringing to or reaching an end

2. the last part of something, as a book, film, etc

3. the final part of a word, esp a suffix

4. chess another word for endgame

Other Word Forms

• unending adjective
• unendingly adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of ending¹

First recorded before 1000; Middle English endyng, Old English endung; equivalent to end ¹ + -ing ¹

Example Sentences

But for the first time since the Hamas attacks on Israel, there is a realistic chance of ending the horrors of the last two years.

Read more on BBC

“We did not start the shutdown and we’re not responsible for ending the shutdown,” said Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, a labor union that represents aviation-safety workers.

Read more on Wall Street Journal

Instead of ending, the bull run has expanded.

Read more on MarketWatch

Comporting oneself at a golf tournament should be a matter of basic human decency, like holding a door, not spoiling a movie ending, and not asking a Mets fan how the baseball playoffs are going.

Read more on Wall Street Journal

“I have a fictionalized version of my recovery” because people want so many details of what happened—and want a happy ending, he wrote.

Read more on Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• closure 
• completion 
• denouement 
• finale 
• outcome 
• period 
• resolution 

When To Use

What is an ending?

An ending is a conclusion, as in I like stories with a happy ending.An ending is also a time when something is finishing or nearing completion, as in I’m ending my school career with all As. An ending is the opposite of a beginning and is used to mean the conclusion of something. Movies have endings. So do civilizations, like the Roman Empire. We even sometimes refer to a person’s death as an ending. Endings and the reasons or events surrounding them are often intensely studied or debated.Example: I liked the book until the terrible ending where the villain won in the last chapter.