English
final
Final comes from Old French final ‘final, definitive, last’, from Latin fīnālis ‘of or relating to the end or to boundaries’, and ultimately from fīnis.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfīnis1‘end’
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfīnālis1‘of or relating to the end or to boundaries’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400final1‘final’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500final1
- Englishearliest quotation 1671final1
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
- 1 Wiktionary, English final
- Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1671, John Milton, Samson Agonistes, […]: “Yet despair not of his final pardon.”.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfīnisWiktionary, English final‘end’
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfīnālisWiktionary, English final‘of or relating to the end or to boundaries’
- Old Frenchc. 842–1400finalWiktionary, English final‘final’
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500finalWiktionary, English final
- Englishearliest quotation 1671finalWiktionary, English final. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1671, John Milton, Samson Agonistes, […]: “Yet despair not of his final pardon.”
The story
Replaced native English endly (‘final’).
Word family
English words that share an ancestor with final, grouped by the ancestor they share, most familiar first.
through Proto-Indo-European *dʰeygʷ- ‘to stick, set up’
through Latin *fignis
- finesse ← fin ← fin ← fīnis
- confine ← confiner ← confines ← confinium ← cōnfīnis
- infinitesimal ← īnfīnītēsimus ← īnfīnītus ← fīnītus ← fīniō
through Latin fīnis ‘end’
- fine ← fin ← fin ← fīniō
- finish ← finishen ← fīnīre
- definition ← diffinicioun ← dēfīnītiō ← dēfīniō ← fīniō
56 more relatives in the full family tree
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Today it means
noun A final examination; a test or examination given at the end of a term or class; the test that concludes a class.
Sources
Sources: Wiktionary, “final”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.
Etymograph / Latin fīnis / final