The end or final point of something, especially a transportation route like a railway or bus line. Also refers to a boundary marker or the final station where passengers must disembark.
From Latin 'terminus,' meaning 'boundary' or 'end,' also the name of the Roman god of boundaries and landmarks. The transportation meaning developed in the 19th century with the expansion of railway systems, where it designated final stops.
Terminus was originally a Roman god whose shrines marked property boundaries - moving these markers was considered sacrilege punishable by death, showing how seriously ancient cultures took spatial limits. The word perfectly captures the psychological weight of endpoints: railway terminals aren't just stops but thresholds between journeys, places where one chapter ends and another begins.
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