Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[jasonlulu_2000]

What does "endeth" mean? I came across this word in many passages and couldn't look it up in any dictionary.

For example:
The party scene where the fortune is revealed has been cut as has Twain's concluding paragraphs which "endeth this chronicle."

thank you

[pugachevV]

Endeth is just old English (around 400 years old at least) it simply means "ends".
It is the kind of English you find in the King James Bible, which is the Christian holy book.
Here endeth the lesson

[CP]

So true. When I was a boy, way back in the day, we conjugated to do this way:

I do
thou dost
he / she / it doth
we do
you do
they do

Somewhere along the line, we got rid of thou and just used you for both singular and plural, and we started putting an s instead of th at the end of third person singular.

He sayeth became he says. She hath became she has. It cometh became it comes.

It's actually modern English, as spoken by old Will Shakespeare and me. It worketh well, think'st thou not?
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