END OF THE WORLD

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does end of the world mean? 

• END OF THE WORLD (noun)
  The noun END OF THE WORLD has 2 senses:

1. (New Testament) day at the end of time following Armageddon when God will decree the fates of all individual humans according to the good and evil of their earthly lives

2. an unpleasant or disastrous destiny

  Familiarity information: END OF THE WORLD used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• END OF THE WORLD (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(New Testament) day at the end of time following Armageddon when God will decree the fates of all individual humans according to the good and evil of their earthly lives

Classified under:

Nouns denoting time and temporal relations

Synonyms:

crack of doom; Day of Judgement; Day of Judgment; day of reckoning; Doomsday; end of the world; eschaton; Judgement Day; Judgment Day; Last Day; Last Judgement; Last Judgment

Hypernyms ("end of the world" is a kind of...):

day (some point or period in time)

Domain category:

New Testament (the collection of books of the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, the Pauline and other epistles, and Revelation; composed soon after Christ's death; the second half of the Christian Bible)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An unpleasant or disastrous destiny

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Synonyms:

day of reckoning; doom; doomsday; end of the world

Context example:

that's unfortunate but it isn't the end of the world

Hypernyms ("end of the world" is a kind of...):

destiny; fate (an event (or a course of events) that will inevitably happen in the future)

 Context examples 

But it couldn't have been so very deep, could it, if you could go off to the other end of the world and leave me here alone.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

"I might have stood and rusted in the forest till the end of the world."

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

For we are going up, and up; and all is oh! so wild and rocky, as though it were the end of the world.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Methinks the end of the world is not far from there.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Well, it was this way, returned Mr. Enfield: I was coming home from some place at the end of the world, about three o’clock of a black winter morning, and my way lay through a part of town where there was literally nothing to be seen but lamps.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

I have found that random, untoward events often push me into a better place. Is there stress? Oh sure, I have felt intense stress, but in hindsight I always see the event I thought was the end of the world turn out to be a gift from the universe.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

“You might have gone farther off,” I said, brightening a little, “and been as bad as lost. I shall see you sometimes, my dear old Peggotty, there. You won't be quite at the other end of the world, will you?”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

At the same time three ravens flew down to him, perched themselves upon his knee, and said: We are the three young ravens whom you saved from starving; when we had grown big, and heard that you were seeking the Golden Apple, we flew over the sea to the end of the world, where the Tree of Life stands, and have brought you the apple.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

“I would fain know, father,” asked the young man, “what there may be at the end of the world?”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

“It's an affecting thing,” said Mrs. Markleham—“however it's viewed, it's affecting, to see a fine young man one has known from an infant, going away to the other end of the world, leaving all he knows behind, and not knowing what's before him.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)