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This word comes straight from Latin. In the Roman empire, a terminus was a boundary stone, and all boundary stones had a minor god associated with them, whose name was Terminus. Terminus was a kind of keeper of the peace, since wherever there was a terminus there could be no arguments about where your property ended and your neighbor's property began. So Terminus even had his own festival, the Terminalia, when images of the god were draped with flower garlands. Today the word shows up in all kinds of places, including in the name of numerous hotels worldwide built near a city's railway terminus.
Examples of terminus in a Sentence
Joan Meiners, AZCentral.com, 20 Oct. 2025
Clinton and his flotilla made their way east to the canal’s terminus in Albany, then down the Hudson River to New York City.
—Matthew Smith, The Conversation, 20 Oct. 2025
Transcript Over the past two weeks, the situation at the southern terminus of the Continental Divide Trail has changed in some important ways.
—Adam Roy, Outside, 19 Oct. 2025
Cherokee, North Carolina, is located at the entrance to Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the southern terminus of the Blue Ridge Parkway.
—Cu Fleshman, Travel + Leisure, 4 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for terminus
Cite this Entry
“Terminus.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terminus. Accessed 29 Oct. 2025.
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terminus
noun
Medical Definition
terminus
noun
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