End play

Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof. --Eccl. vii. 8. [1913 Webster]

2. Point beyond which no procession can be made; conclusion; issue; result, whether successful or otherwise; conclusive event; consequence. [1913 Webster]

My guilt be on my head, and there an end. --Shak. [1913 Webster]

O that a man might know The end of this day's business ere it come! --Shak. [1913 Webster]

3. Termination of being; death; destruction; extermination; also, cause of death or destruction. [1913 Webster]

Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end. --Pope. [1913 Webster]

Confound your hidden falsehood, and award Either of you to be the other's end. --Shak. [1913 Webster]

I shall see an end of him. --Shak. [1913 Webster]

4. The object aimed at in any effort considered as the close and effect of exertion; ppurpose; intention; aim; as, to labor for private or public ends. [1913 Webster]

Losing her, the end of living lose. --Dryden. [1913 Webster]

When every man is his own end, all things will come to a bad end. --Coleridge. [1913 Webster]

5. That which is left; a remnant; a fragment; a scrap; as, odds and ends. [1913 Webster]

I clothe my naked villainy With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ, And seem a saint, when most I play the devil. --Shak. [1913 Webster]

6. (Carpet Manuf.) One of the yarns of the worsted warp in a Brussels carpet. [1913 Webster]

{An end}. (a) On end; upright; erect; endways. --Spenser (b) To the end; continuously. [Obs.] --Richardson.

{End bulb} (Anat.), one of the bulblike bodies in which some sensory nerve fibers end in certain parts of the skin and mucous membranes; -- also called {end corpuscles}.

{End fly}, a bobfly.

{End for end}, one end for the other; in reversed order.

{End man}, the last man in a row; one of the two men at the extremities of a line of minstrels.

{End on} (Naut.), bow foremost.

{End organ} (Anat.), the structure in which a nerve fiber ends, either peripherally or centrally.

{End plate} (Anat.), one of the flat expansions in which motor nerve fibers terminate on muscular fibers.

{End play} (Mach.), movement endwise, or room for such movement.

{End stone} (Horol.), one of the two plates of a jewel in a timepiece; the part that limits the pivot's end play.

{Ends of the earth}, the remotest regions of the earth.

{In the end}, finally. --Shak.

{On end}, upright; erect.

{To the end}, in order. --Bacon.

{To make both ends meet}, to live within one's income. --Fuller.

{To put an end to}, to destroy. [1913 Webster]