Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A block or form shaped like a human foot and used in making or repairing shoes.
  • transitive verb To mold or shape on a last.
  • adjective Being, coming, or placed after all others; final.
  • adjective Being the only one left.
  • adjective Just past; most recent.
  • adjective Most up-to-date; newest.
  • adjective Highest in extent or degree; utmost.
  • adjective Most valid, authoritative, or conclusive.
  • adjective Least likely or expected.
  • adjective The least desirable or suitable.
  • adjective Being the latest possible.
  • adjective Lowest in rank or importance.
  • adjective Used as an intensive.
  • adjective Of or relating to a terminal period or stage, as of life.
  • adjective Administered just before death.
  • adverb After all others in chronology or sequence.
  • adverb Most recently.
  • adverb At the end; finally.
  • noun One that is at the end or last.
  • noun The end.
  • noun The final mention or appearance.
  • idiom (at last) After a considerable length of time; finally.
  • idiom (at long last) After a lengthy or troublesome wait or delay.
  • intransitive verb To continue in time; go on.
  • intransitive verb To continue; survive.
  • intransitive verb To remain in good or usable condition.
  • intransitive verb To continue in force or practice.
  • intransitive verb To remain in adequate supply.
  • intransitive verb To keep adequately supplied.
  • intransitive verb To persist or endure for the entire length of; survive.
  • noun A unit of volume or weight varying for different commodities and in different districts, equal to about 80 bushels, 640 gallons, or 2 tons.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To follow out; carry out; perform; do.
  • To extend; reach.
  • To continue to be; remain in existence; continue in progress.
  • To hold out; continue unexhausted or unconsumed; escape failure or loss.
  • To continue unimpaired; remain fresh, unfaded, or unspoiled; continue to be available or serviceable; wear well: as, this color will last.
  • noun A burden; a load; a cargo.
  • noun A load of some commodity with reference to its weight and commercial value; hence, a particular weight or measure, varying in amount in different localities and for different commodities.
  • noun A wooden pattern or model of the human foot, on which shoes are formed.
  • noun A piece cut from a fish and used as bait. In pollack-fishing, for example, such a piece is cut from the under or bright part of the pollack.
  • To form on or by a last; fit to a last, as the materials for a boot or shoe.
  • noun Fault.
  • noun In law, same as last-court.
  • That comes or remains after all the others; latest; hindmost; closing; final; ultimate.
  • Next before the present: as, last week; on the last occasion.
  • Utmost; extreme.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English leste, laste, from Old English lǣste, from lǣst, lāst, sole of the foot; see leis- in Indo-European roots.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English latost, superlative of læt, late; see lē- in Indo-European roots.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English lasten, from Old English lǣstan; see leis- in Indo-European roots.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, load, a kind of measure, from Old English hlæst, load.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old English lǣstan, from Proto-Germanic *laistijanan. Cognate with German leisten ("yield").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old English hlæst.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old English latost

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Examples

  • TWO major thoroughfares because the highway twists like vines as lanes spin up or down around each other - and the roads bend and warp until at last - at *last* - the road bears its own name on a sign.

    austin streets are as hipster as the population 2008

  • TWO major thoroughfares because the highway twists like vines as lanes spin up or down around each other - and the roads bend and warp until at last - at *last* - the road bears its own name on a sign.

    Archive 2008-05-01 2008

  • Your mind begins to spin, as the last of your brain's oxygen is used up, conjuring whatever images it can come up with… your past, the future you're never going to see, your dreams, your nightmares… until finally, at long last…

    jaxraven Diary Entry jaxraven 2001

  • In dates of the last and present century, the expression of the _last two figures_ is sufficient.

    Assimilative Memory or, How to Attend and Never Forget

  • But then it is _all_ they can do -- it is the last card and the _last_ man, and if we make one stupendous effort, we must inevitably crush it.

    The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 Devoted to Literature and National Policy. Various

  • And then, when the hour _has_ come at last, have you been able to take your departure without some half-reproachful feeling akin to melancholy -- without some slight shade of regret to think that much as you have hated it, you look upon it all now for the _last_ time?

    Kate Coventry An Autobiography G. J. Whyte-Melville

  • Evelyn at a concert, for which I had tickets, but I was too tired to go; this morning we went to hear Dr.P. Brooks, the great preacher who everyone was raving about last spring in London, (or was it _last_ year?) his church is like a great _temple_, or public hall, and cost [pound symbol] 180,000.

    The British Association's Visit to Montreal, 1884 : letters Clara Rayleigh

  • I found a feeling of sincere companionship ... a companionship that without ostentation and as a matter of course, shared the last cent the last meal ... when every cent _was_ the last cent, every meal the _last_ meal ... the rest depending on luck and

    Tramping on Life An Autobiographical Narrative Harry Kemp 1921

  • ” Seward pleaded for delay, fearing that on account of the depression of the public mind the proclamation might “be viewed as the last measure of an exhausted government, a cry for help, the government stretching forth its hands to Ethiopia” in a “last shriek on the retreat.

    Chapter IV 1917

  • The love of it clung to him to the last moments of his life; but tho he felt that “last infirmity of noble minds, ” never did there breathe a human being who had a more lofty disdain for the shallow and treacherous popularity which is to be courted by subserviency, and purchased at the expense of principle and duty.

    On Catholic Relief 1906

Comments

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  • Cobbler's templates

    July 28, 2009

  • "He praised the pine-woods, the deep lasts of bracken, the crimson leaves that spotted the hurt-bushes, the serviceable beauty of the turnpike road."

    - E.M. Forster, A Room With a View

    I'm struggling to find the sense of last being used here.

    May 3, 2011