end [OE] End comes from a common Germanic root. To make ends meet or make both ends meet, ‘earn enough money to live on’, was formerly also make the two ends of the year meet. It probably refers to the idea of making your annual income stretch from the beginning to the end of the year. The phrase goes back to at least 1661. If you are at the end of your tether you have no patience or energy left to cope with something. People in North America tend to say that they are at the end of their rope. The image behind both expressions is that of a grazing animal tethered on a rope so that it can move where it likes, but only within a certain range. When it reaches the end of its tether—when the rope is taut—it can go no further. At the end of the day has become one of those clichés that enrages teachers and linguistic purists. It does not seem to have been used before the 1970s.