penultimate

adjective pen·ul·ti·mate \ pi-ˈnəl-tə-mət \

|Updated on: 15 Jul 2018

Examples: penultimate in a Sentence

Editor's Note: Did You Know?

Definition of penultimate

1 : next to the last

the penultimate chapter of a book

2 : of or relating to the next to the last syllable of a word

a penultimate accent

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penultimately

adverb

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Examples of penultimate in a Sentence

Belle was the penultimate person to die, just hours before a slave, fifty-three-year-old Alba, wandered in delirium away from his cabin and sat down to death in front of Carlyle's airing-out cottage. —Edward P. Jones, The Known World, 2003
He threw harder in the last inning than he did in the first, whiffing pinch hitter Darryl Strawberry with a 97-mph heater for the penultimate out and blowing away the final hitter, Knoblauch, with a 96-mph fastball. —Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated, 27 Mar. 2000
… regulations have cleared the penultimate hurdle and appear ready to become law … —John Aloysius Farrell, Sunday Denver (CO) Post, 2 Sept. 1984
Pompey … speaks of her mother's difficult death and of her own longings for death and rises to a rare moment of lyric power in the novel's penultimate paragraph. —Joyce Carol Oates, New York Times Book Review, 3 Oct. 1982
the penultimate syllable of the word

Recent Examples of penultimate from the Web

The penultimate episode of the show's first season is set to air on Sunday.

— joe otterson, chicagotribune.com, "'Pose' renewed for Season 2 at FX," 12 July 2018
Regardless, the Phillies’ 89th and penultimate loss that season was one for the record books.

— frank fitzpatrick, Philly.com, "When and how the Phillies once played nine innings in 51 minutes," 9 July 2018
The penultimate moments are mentioned, but the larger story is mostly left untold.

— Anchorage Daily News, "In ‘To the Ends of the Earth,’ an ambitious attempt to encompass era of polar exploration," 7 July 2018
The penultimate poem of Canto general, written in 1949 and addressed to the Chilean Communist Party, which Neruda had joined four years earlier, offers one of many examples.

— benjamin kunkel, The New Republic, "The partisan world of Pablo Neruda," 2 July 2018
But after a 1-1 draw at home against Finland in the penultimate qualifier threatened even a playoff place, Cacic was ousted for Dalic, who had been quietly impressive with clubs in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

— jonathan wilson, SI.com, "Croatia Meeting Its World Cup Potential As Chronic Chaos Subsides," 22 June 2018
Gina Rodriguez will be throwing her hat in the Emmy ring for the fourth (and penultimate) season of her CW comedy, Jane the Virgin.

— michael o'connell, The Hollywood Reporter, "Gina Rodriguez Funds College Scholarship for Latinx Student With Emmy Money," 19 June 2018
But between the bookends of fishing and feasting comes a penultimate step that, if not dreaded, isn’t exactly looked forward to by anglers: Cleaning the catch.

— shannon tompkins, Houston Chronicle, "Fillet blade a cut above the rest for anglers," 6 June 2018
Correction | This story originally misstated Philip Hammond's title and wrongly attributed a quote from Reza Afshar in the penultimate paragraph to Faysal Itani from the Atlantic Council.

— janine di giovanni, Newsweek, "Syria Cease-Fire Faces Deep Skepticism on All Sides," 15 Sep. 2016

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'penultimate.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

Penultimate isn't the last word in words for things that are next to last. There is a pair of noun synonyms that are used commonly enough to have gained entry into abridged dictionaries: penult and penultima. Although all three can refer to something that's next to last, penult and penultima are usually a bit more specific; they are used most often to identify the next to last syllable of a word. All three derive from paenultima, a Latin root from paene ("almost") and ultima ("last"). You may occasionally hear the word penultimate used as an intensified version of ultimate, as in "a race they've called 'the penultimate challenge.'" This use isn't typically found in edited prose, however-or in dictionaries. One of our editors discusses it in this video.