Translation
end, limit; boundary; purpose
Examples
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The end of the war was at hand.
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He reached the end of his life.
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The borders of the kingdom stretched wide.
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They pitched camp in the enemy's territory.
laudatur.
He is praised without end.
Finis, finis, m., third declension i-stem, so genitive plural finium and ablative fine. It is masculine in prose, though poets occasionally make it feminine, and the corpus follows the masculine.
The plural is the trap. Fines only rarely means "ends"; it usually means boundaries, and by an easy step the land inside them, so in finibus Helvetiorum is "in the territory of the Helvetii", not "at the edges of" anything. The third sense, purpose or goal, is the one philosophy took: finis bonorum, the highest good, and the scholastic finis ultimus behind English final cause. Also here: finio, finitimus ("neighbouring"), definio, and English finish, finite, define, confine and finance, which began as the settling of a debt.
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finis: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Latin word "finis" (end, limit; boundary; purpose): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 5.