vanishing point

a point of disappearance, cessation, or extinction: His patience had reached the vanishing point.

(in the study of perspective in art) that point toward which receding parallel lines appear to converge.

Origin of vanishing point

First recorded in 1790–1800

It increased when the steamer re-stoked her fires, and diminished almost to vanishing-point as the fuel was consumed.

Godfrey Morgan |Jules Verne
At length the vanishing-point was reached, and horse and rider rounded the bend.

The Night Riders |Ridgwell Cullum
And the conversation, thus re-established, developed on the same lines until the vanishing-point of the army of womankind.

It Never Can Happen Again |William De Morgan
He took in the blocky shoulders and the square head, and he pictured the little eyes at a vanishing-point in lines of a bargain.

The Crisis, Complete |Winston Churchill

But faced with the tangible workings of criminal investigation her resolution and her theories shrank to vanishing-point.

The Green Rust |Edgar Wallace

vanishing point

the point to which parallel lines appear to converge in the rendering of perspective, usually on the horizon

a point in space or time at or beyond which something disappears or ceases to exist