1.
terminal form; conclusive form; dictionary form
One of the six traditional conjugation bases (活用形) of Japanese verbs and adjectives: the form used to end a plain-style sentence. This is the form listed in dictionaries — e.g., 書く, 食べる, 高い.
辞書の見出しは終止形です。
Dictionary headwords are given in the terminal form.
「食べる」は終止形で文を言い切る形です。
"Taberu" is the terminal form, the form that concludes a sentence.
現代語では終止形と連体形が同じ形になっている。
In modern Japanese, the terminal form and the attributive form have become the same.
A technical term from traditional Japanese grammar (国文法). Composed of 終止 ("termination, conclusion") + 形 ("form"). This is the citation form — the form you look up in a dictionary — and the form used to end plain-style declarative sentences. In classical Japanese the 終止形 and 連体形 were distinct (e.g., classical 書く vs. 書く物), but in modern Japanese they have merged for all verbs and adjectives except the copula.
USAGE:
- Used to end a plain-style sentence: 雨が降る。
- Used before certain sentence-final particles and auxiliaries like と, から, し, そうだ (hearsay), らしい.
- For adjectives, this is the 〜い form (e.g., 高い); for na-adjectives, the 〜だ form.
COMMON COLLOCATIONS:
- 動詞の終止形: terminal form of a verb
- 終止形で文を終える: to end a sentence in the terminal form
- 辞書形: dictionary form (a more common name for this form in Japanese-language teaching)
RELATED TERMS:
- 辞書形: dictionary form — the same form, called by its function in JLT materials
- 未然形: irrealis form
- 連用形: continuative form
- 連体形: attributive form
- 仮定形: hypothetical form
- 命令形: imperative form