ultimate — English Dictionary

ultimate
Pronunciations (3)
  • /ˈʌltɪmət/
    Pronunciation notes
    • General-American
    • Received-Pronunciation
  • ˈʌltɪmɪt
    Pronunciation notes
    • GB
  • ˈʌltəmɪt
    Pronunciation notes
    • US

Adjective

  1. Final; last in a series.

    Usage
    • not-comparable
    Examples

    […] they [the sounds of an echo] next strike the ultimate secondary object, then the penultimate and antepenultimate; […]

  2. Last in a word or other utterance.

    Usage
    • not-comparable
    • of a syllable
  3. Being the greatest possible; maximum; most extreme.

    Examples

    the ultimate pleasure

    the ultimate disappointment

    More examples (5)

    Not that we consider this as the most desirable channel in which these affections should be made to flow. The good that is done in this way, is by no means in proportion to the good that is intended. Injudicious charity has probably been productive of far more ultimate evil, than the coldest and most indiscriminating selfishness.

    "But if Berkeley be clear in conveying his doctrine, the matter of the exposition will be found not the less to press upon the powers of the firmest intellect. There are diligent students of modern metaphysical literature, who are little disciplined for the difficulties of disquisition into which a thorough examination of his views would lead them. His characteristic system depends little on mere classification, little on the more obvious results of observation. It rests on a basis of intense self-contemplation, which, to be prosecuted to any purpose, must be prosecuted with extreme perseverance. It questions the conscious being on points the most ultimate in his nature, — points which, though they be but facts of consciousness, we hesitate not to say, there are many minds wholly unable to make the objects of reflection."

    "From the foregoing observations we deduce the interesting fact that acetic acid, hitherto known only as a product of the oxidation of organic materials, can be built up by almost direct synthesis from its elements. Sulphide of carbon, chloride of carbon, and chlorine, are the agents which, along with water, accomplish the transformation of carbon into acetic acid. If we could only transform acetic acid into alcohol, and out of the latier could obtain sugar and starch, then we should be enabled to build up these common vegetable principles, by the so-called artificial method, from their most ultimate elements."

    Dr. Bucknill declares that the growth and renovation of nerve-cells in the brain "are the most ultimate conditions of mind with which we are accquainted"; but instead of inferring from this that we know very little indeed about the mind, he concludes that thought, recollection, and reason are products of "the activity of the vesicular neurine of the brain."

    Hepaticology, outside the temperate parts of the Northern Hemisphere, still lies deep in the shadow cast by that ultimate "closet taxonomist," Franz Stephani—a ghost whose shadow falls over us all.

  4. Being the most distant or extreme; farthest.

  5. That will happen at some time; eventual.

    Usage
    • not-comparable
    Synonyms
  6. Last in a train of progression or consequences; tended toward by all that precedes; arrived at, as the last result; final.

    Usage
    • not-comparable
    Examples

    those ultimate truths and those universal laws of thought which we cannot rationally contradict

  7. Incapable of further analysis; incapable of further division or separation; constituent; elemental.

    Usage
    • not-comparable
    Examples

    an ultimate constituent of matter

Noun

  1. The most basic or fundamental of a set of things

    Usage
    • Countable
    • Uncountable
  2. The final or most distant point; the conclusion

    Usage
    • Countable
    • Uncountable
  3. The greatest extremity; the maximum

    Usage
    • Countable
    • Uncountable

Verb

  1. To finish; to complete.

    Usage
    • Archaic
    • Transitive
    Examples
    More examples (1)

    These measures have been carried forward with a zeal and unanimity that warrant the hope we entertain, of ultimating the plans in respect to our Temple, before the next meeting of the Maryland Association.

Adjective

  1. furthest or highest in degree or order; utmost or extreme

    Antonyms
    Examples

    the ultimate achievement

    the ultimate question

    More examples (3)

    man's ultimate destiny

    the ultimate insult

    one's ultimate goal in life

  2. being the last or concluding element of a series

    Examples

    the ultimate sonata of that opus

    a distinction between the verb and noun senses of ‘conflict’ is that in the verb the stress is on the ultimate (or last) syllable

Noun

  1. the finest or most superior quality of its kind

    Broader terms
    Examples

    the ultimate in luxury

Word forms
more ultimatemost ultimateultimatesultimatesultimatingultimatedultimated

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