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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
Rose Evans
july 23, Idaho Statesman, 23 July 2025
Not bad for a town that emerged originally as the terminus of industrial traffic along the Erie Canal in the early 1800s.
—David Allan, CNN Money, 31 May 2025
That segment is part of an $80-million project — funded primarily by Jefferson County Open Space with help from Great Outdoors Colorado and the Denver Regional Council of Governments — to extend the trail three miles from its current terminus.
—John Meyer, Denver Post, 8 May 2025
The president is also scheduled to fly around 300 miles from Luanda to the municipality of Lobito, where a port is the terminus of a railway line that his administration has poured billions of dollars into in an effort to redevelop and extend a precious minerals transit system.
—Carlo Angerer, NBC News, 2 Dec. 2024
See All Example Sentences for terminus
Cite this Entry
“Terminus.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terminus. Accessed 4 Aug. 2025.
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terminus
noun
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terminus
noun
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