Old English ende "end, conclusion, boundary, district, species, class," from Proto-Germanic *andja (cf. Old Frisian enda, Old Dutch ende, Dutch einde, Old Norse endir "end;" Old High German enti "top, forehead, end," German ende, Gothic andeis "end"), originally "the opposite side," from PIE *antjo "end, boundary," from root *ant- "opposite, in front of, before" (see ante).
Original sense of "outermost part" is obsolete except in phrase ends of the earth. Sense of "destruction, death" was in Old English. Meaning "division or quarter of a town" was in Old English. The end "the last straw, the limit" (in a disparaging sense) is from 1929.
The phrase end run is first attested 1902 in U.S. football; extended to military tactics in World War II; general figurative sense is from 1968. End time in reference to the end of the world is from 1917. To end it all "commit suicide" is attested by 1911. Be-all and end-all is from Shakespeare ("Macbeth" I.vii.5).
Worldly wealth he cared not for, desiring onely to make both ends meet. [Thomas Fuller, "The History of the Worthies of England," 1662]
Discombobulated or without a clue: at loose ends when they aren't around
go off the deep end, hind end, jump off the deep end, the living end, rear end, short end of the stick
in Heb. 13:7, is the rendering of the unusual Greek word _ekbasin_, meaning "outcome", i.e., death. It occurs only elsewhere in 1 Cor. 10:13, where it is rendered "escape."