Word of the Day

: December 26, 2018

utmost

adjective UT-mohst

What It Means

1 : situated at the farthest or most distant point : extreme

2 : of the greatest or highest degree, quantity, number, or amount

utmost in Context

"The refuge, which is bordered by the Centennial Mountains and Continental Divide to the south and the Gravelly Mountains to the north, is also home to the utmost point of the Missouri and Mississippi rivers." — Kelley Christensen, The Montana Standard, 25 Nov. 2013

"The Richmond football team is one of eight 4AA squads with a bye this week, but head coach Bryan Till is still preaching … that keeping a sense of urgency is of the utmost importance." — Leon Hargrove Jr., The Richmond County (North Carolina) Daily Journal, 15 Nov. 2018

Did You Know?

Utmost traces back to the Old English ūtmest, a superlative adjective formed from the adverb ūt, meaning "out." Ūtmest eventually evolved into utmost, perhaps influenced by the spelling of the word most. Not surprisingly, the earlier sense of utmost carries the same meaning as outermost. The second sense of utmost, meaning "of the greatest or highest degree," first appeared in English in the 14th century. A related word is utter, meaning "absolute" or "total," as in the phrase "utter chaos"; it comes from Old English utera, meaning "outer," and ultimately from ūt.