demise

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The end or failure of something.

   A lack of funding eventually led to the magazine's demise.

2. 2
   noun

   A person's death.

   The whole village mourned the demise of its beloved old doctor.

Simplified etymology

Demise entered English in the late Middle Ages with the sense ‘transfer of possessions by will’. It ultimately derives from Latin mittere ‘to send’, through its past participle missus, the same root found in message and messenger.

From Middle English demyse, dimise, dimisse, dymyse, from Middle French démise, the feminine singular past participle of démettre (“to put down, relinquish”); from Latin dēmissa, feminine singular of perfect passive participle of dēmittō. The "death" and "end" senses derive by way of euphemism from the legal sense, as a person's death was a common way that the legal demise could be accomplished. The verb is from Middle English dimisen, from the noun.

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