terminator

Meanings

1. Someone who terminates or ends something, especially (in later use) an assassin or exterminator.
2. A text character or string that serves to mark the end of a document or transmission.
3. The line between the day side and the night side of a moon, planet or other celestial body.
4. A DNA sequence that causes RNA transcription to cease and an mRNA transcript to break off.
5. An electrical device that absorbs reflection at the end of a transmission line.
6. An intelligent android created to destroy humans.

Etymology

* Partly from post-classical Latin terminator (5th century), from Latin terminō; partly from terminate + -or. * (android that kills humans): After the 1984 film The Terminator.