endgame vs ending

endgame

noun
  • The final stage of any game. 

  • The final stage of a game of chess, when there are few pieces left. 

  • The final stage of an extended process or course of events, especially with the implication of the imminent realization of a masterful strategy or plan. 

  • The gameplay available in a massively multiplayer online role-playing game for players who have completed all of the preset challenges. 

  • The final stage of a game of bridge, when there are few cards left. 

adj
  • Having become canon by the end of the plot of a work of fiction or speculated to be intended to become such. 

ending

noun
  • The last part of something. 

  • A termination or conclusion. 

  • The last morpheme of a word, added to some base to make an inflected form (such as -s in "dogs"). 

How often have the words endgame and ending occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )