Antepenultimate
[an-tə-pə-NUL-tə-mət]
Part of speech: adjective
Origin: Latin, 18th century
1.
(Attributive) Last but two in a series; third last.
Examples of Antepenultimate in a sentence
"Lena was the antepenultimate student in line."
"The antepenultimate stanza didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the poem."
About Antepenultimate
This word stems from the Late Latin “antepaenultima,” the feminine form of “antepaenultimus,” meaning “preceding the next to last.” “Ante-” means “before,” “pænultima” means "almost" (a word of uncertain origin), and “ultima” means "last."
Did you Know?
When it comes to describing the order things come in, ordinal words such as “first,” ”second,” “third,” and “fourth” describe the beginning of a list, but what about the end? Latin gives us more sophisticated words than “last.” “Ultimate” makes sense as the last, or final, object. “Penultimate” is a somewhat familiar term, meaning “second to last, and “antepenultimate” and “preantepenultimate” mean “third from last” and “fourth from last,.” respectively.
