Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Next to last.
- adj. Linguistics Of or relating to the penult of a word: penultimate stress.
- n. The next to the last.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Immediately preceding that member of a series which is the last; next before the last; being the last but one: as, the penultimate syllable; the penultimate joint. Compare antepenultimate.
- n. That member of a series which is the last but one; specifically, the last syllable but one of a word.
- n. In whist and bridge, the lowest but one of a suit.
Wiktionary
- adj. formal Coming next-to-last in a sequence.
- adj. linguistics Of or pertaining to a penult.
- n. this sense?) A next-to-last thing.
- n. linguistics A next-to-last syllable in a linguistic unit.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Last but one.
- n. The penult.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the next to last syllable in a word
- adj. next to the last
Etymologies
- From Latin paenultimus, from paene ("almost") + ultimus ("last"). (Wiktionary)
- From Latin paenultimus; see penult. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The former Republican New York gubernatorial candidate pens a letter insulting a journalist "Maybe it's your youth, immaturity, inexperience, or what appears to be an endless desire to ingratiate yourself with people in power...", then misuses the word "penultimate.”
The Washington Post: National, World & D.C. Area News and Headlines - The Washington Post
“No words but monosyllables or contracted forms have the accent on the last; dissyllables are therefore always accented on the first, and polysyllables on the first or second, according as the penultimate is short or long, _Lúcius, cecídi_.”
The History of Roman Literature From the earliest period to the death of Marcus Aurelius
“graeme on 8-19-2008 at 1:14 pm yay for the proper usage of the word penultimate!”
Nunc Scio » Blog Archive » My road to 100 push ups: week the third
“I started reading and was immediately sideswiped and distracted by the lead-in writer’s use of the word penultimate - Gilder’s penultimate point?”
“These philosophies are what might be called the penultimate forms of irrationalism.”
“Southwards down the African coast it is doubtful whether in face of the interference of England, Russia, France, Denmark and Spain, he could have made piracy pay; but in turning for the Mediterranean he took what we may call the penultimate step of his life which meant for him settling down.”
“In the last section of this MS. _but one_ (that is, the penultimate), I think that I have omitted a line in the copy sent to you from Florence, viz. after the line --”
Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 4 (of 6) With His Letters and Journals
“The eighth wicket was taken by Malinga and the penultimate was a run-out!”
“Here we are at the second to last A Movie A Day, what Herc would call penultimate, and the final film in nearly a work-week worth of Neil Simon movies: CALIFORNIA SUITE.”
Ain't It Cool News - The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.
“Of course, this pope is described as the penultimate pope, to be followed by "Peter of Rome" who will destroy the city.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘penultimate’.
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Test Prep or Just for fun
Building a list for standardized test prep or just for learning some new words! Please add any words that you feel are important for the SAT/GRE/GMAT etc...
throng, morass, parley, facile, kismet, strife, jetsam, carrion, annex, harbinger, vestige, surreptitious and 575 more...
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Muse's tacet ,to learn
Music brings silence's to raging thoughts and temperament , calm, as it is our object of definite purpose.
tacet, cadence, tempo, treble clef, penultimate, lexicon, origin, orchestra, kantele, magus, eros, coalesce and 248 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...conferral, stateless, person, voting, right, subsidiarity, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia, Lithuania, Finland, Estonia and 2614 more...
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perfectly plosive p's
positively p's, please!
penultimate, perdurable, proscenium, pysmatic, petaliferous, pogoniasis, pyx, palimpsest, pareidolia, perspicuous, pauciloquy, pococurante and 14 more...
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Ultimates
ultimate, penultimate, The Ultimates, Ultimate Frisbee, Ultimate, Ultimate!, preantepenultimate, antepenultimate, Ultimate Fighting..., ultimate cause, somersaultimate, resultimate and 25 more...
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Open List: SUGGESTIONS FOR THE UNDERS...
Recruiting all Wordieniks to introduce me to their best word friends!! If words were people, this is the list for ones I should meet and ones I will (hopefully) like.
gyre, penultimate, cake, schadenfreude, lacuna, skedaddle, schopfling, morphoanatomy, overscore, swasivious, brightling, phrontisserie and 17 more...
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jeffrey.t.whitney's list
sartorial, sabbatarian, sagacious, desiccate, ersatz, insouciant, atavistic, luddite, crwth, obdurate, stentorian, ruminate and 51 more...
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The Times
umbrageous, libidinaly, dicastery, millenarian, penultimate, eschatological, construe, heuristic, transmogrify, fulgurating, inimical
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1847 more...
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Why do I not know that word?!?!
Words that are commonly used by the masses but you aren't quite sure of their meanings.
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Reading Vocab
bleak, batiste, maroon, impiety, aigrette, precious, warrant, ulterior, syllogism, vie, topsy-turvy ago, midnight crush and 180 more...
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My GRE Vocab
moniker, sobriquet, prerogative, aberration, aberrant, nuance, notorious, infamous, renown, allude, refer, content and 109 more...
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Twitter favourites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
bumwank, calamity, recalcitrant, gayenese, jeeze, nonsense, flabbergasted, juxtapose, procrastinating, ossanity, biffing, loser and 1972 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for penultimate.

Louises The last hour had taken me into the penultimate phase, the wolf looking out through human eyes with quiet blazing animal alertness. From "The Last Werewolf" by Glen Duncan.
Mar 28, 2012
Telofy What happened to my dear Unicode? :-o Nov 6, 2009
Telofy /p??n?lt?m?t/ looks like an error. A stressed schwa?
Random House says /p??n?lt?m?t/ which not only looks more reasonable but also agrees with my printed version of the Heritage Dictionary (including the /?/s and schwas in the unstressed syllables). Nov 5, 2009
walkerslaw I think many people assume penultimate to be a cross between pinnacle and ultimate. In that sense, Nigel from Spinal Tap could have said, "this amplifier is the penultimate." Oct 28, 2009
eggoabbas This word is often taken to somehow mean "super-ultimate" as if the "pen" syllable where an intensifier. This dilutes the usefulness of actual meaning, but it is a very common usage nonetheless. Jun 27, 2009
quotato He who laughs last does not laugh penultimately. Jun 24, 2009
jeffrey.t.whitney My all-time, most hated type of speech is execubabble. For example, the (?word?) 'incentivize'.
It's not a @#!#@#@! word!!!
It is a noun, not a #@#!#@!@ verb!! Stop with the verbification!!! (To quote a term coined by Grammar Girl). Jun 11, 2009
smrtrthnu the word is so misunderstood... Oct 17, 2008
mollusque In the left atrium? Sep 23, 2008
wackyvorlon People who use the word penultimate properly hold a special place in my heart. Sep 22, 2008
dubek One of wife's favourties. Jan 19, 2008
rawles The use of literally to mean figuratively makes me lose a little more faith in humanity every time I hear it. May 23, 2007
trivet Likewise on both accounts, with extra cringes for the recent fad of belligerent used as a synonym for drunk/intoxicated. *huuuhg* May 21, 2007
reesetee Yes! AAAAAARGH! I literally cringe when I hear that. ;-) May 21, 2007
uselessness Literally, when whatever's being described is the exact opposite of literal. May 21, 2007
reesetee And the first (just out of curiosity)? May 21, 2007
uselessness That's got to be the second-worst language mistake I hear people make all the time. May 21, 2007
rawles Meaning "next to last" not "super ultimate" as people often seem to assume. May 20, 2007