| end | 1. The extreme or last point or part of any material thing considered lengthwise (the extremity of breadth being side); hence, extremity, in general; the concluding part; termination; close; limit; as, the end of a field, line, pole, road; the end of a year, of a discourse; put an end to pain; opposed to beginning, when used of anything having a first part. "Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof." (Eccl. Vii. 8) 2. Point beyond which no procession can be made; conclusion; issue; result, whether successful or otherwise; conclusive event; consequence. "My guilt be on my head, and there an end." (Shak) "O that a man might know The end of this day's business ere it come!" (Shak) 3. Termination of being; death; destruction; extermination; also, cause of death or destruction. "Unblamed through life, lamented in thy end." (Pope) "Confound your hidden falsehood, and award either of you to be the other's end." (Shak) "I shall see an end of him." (Shak) 4. The object aimed at in any effort considered as the close and effect of exertion; ppurpose; intention; aim; as, to labour for private or public ends. "Losing her, the end of living lose." (Dryden) "When every man is his own end, all things will come to a bad end." (Coleridge) 5. That which is left; a remnant; a fragment; a scrap; as, odds and ends. "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) 6. One of the yarns of the worsted warp in a Brussels carpet. An end. On end; upright; erect; endways. To the end; continuously. <anatomy> End bulb, 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. On end, upright; erect. To the end, in order. To make both ends meet, to live within one's income. To put an end to, to destroy. Origin: OE. & AS. Ende; akin to OS. Endi, D. Einde, eind, OHG. Enti, G. Ende, Icel. Endir, endi, Sw. Ande, Dan. Ende, Goth. Andeis, Skr. Anta. Cf. Ante-, Anti-, Answer. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998) |
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| end artery | <anatomy, artery> An artery with insufficient anastomoses to maintain viability of the tissue supplied if occlusion of the artery occurs. Synonym: terminal artery. (05 Mar 2000) |
| end-brush | An anomalous term that refers to the terminal arborization of an axon. Synonym: end-brush. Origin: G. Telos, end, + dendron, tree (05 Mar 2000) |
| end bud | The rapidly proliferating mass of cells at the caudal extremity of the embryo; remnant of the primitive node. Synonym: end bud. (05 Mar 2000) |
| end bulb | One of the oval or rounded bodies in which the sensory nerve fibres terminate in mucous membrane. (05 Mar 2000) |
| end cell | A fully differentiated cell, the mature cell of a lineage. (05 Mar 2000) |
| end-cutting bur | A bur with blades only on its end. (05 Mar 2000) |
| end-diastolic | 1. Occurring at the end of diastole, immediately before the next systole, as in end-diastolic pressure. 2. Interrupting the final moments of diastole, barely premature, as in end-diastolic extrasystole. (05 Mar 2000) |
| end-diastolic volume | The amount of blood in the ventricle immediately before a cardiac contraction begins; a measurement of cardiac filling between beats, related to diastolic function. (05 Mar 2000) |
| end-feet | The somewhat enlarged, often club-shaped endings by which axons make synaptic contacts with other nerve cells or with effector cells (muscle or gland cells). As isolated, by homogenizing brain or spinal cord, they contain acetylcholine and the related enzymes. Terminals contain neurotransmitters of various kinds, sometimes more than one. These can be demonstrated by chemical analysis and immunocytochemical methods. See: synapse. Synonym: axonal terminal boutons, end-feet, neuropodia, pieds terminaux, synaptic boutons, synaptic endings, synaptic terminals, terminal boutons, bouton terminaux. (05 Mar 2000) |
| end-filling | The use of DNA polymerase to create a blunt end (both strands are the same length and end together) on double-stranded DNA that has a staggered end (one strand is longer than the other so there is a single-stranded section at the end of the molecule). (09 Oct 1997) |
| end-on mattress suture | A vertical mattress suture used for exact skin approximation. (05 Mar 2000) |
| end organ | The special structure containing the terminal of a nerve fibre in peripheral tissue such as muscle, tissue, skin, mucous membrane, or glands. See: ending. (05 Mar 2000) |
| end oxidation | <biochemistry> The last oxidation step in a catabolic pathway. Synonym: terminal oxidation. (05 Mar 2000) |
| end-piece | The terminal part of the tail of a spermatozoon consisting of the axoneme and the flagellar membrane. (05 Mar 2000) |