Ultimate

Meaning

(not comparable) Final; last in a series..

Definitions by Sense

1. (not comparable) Final; last in a series.
2. (not comparable, of a syllable) Last in a word or other utterance.
3. Being the greatest possible; maximum; most extreme.
4. Being the most distant or extreme; farthest.
5. (not comparable) That will happen at some time; eventual.
6. (not comparable) Last in a train of progression or consequences; tended toward by all that precedes; arrived at, as the last result; final.
7. (not comparable) Incapable of further analysis; incapable of further division or separation; constituent; elemental.
8. The most basic or fundamental of a set of things

Example Sentences

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

the ultimate pleasure

the ultimate disappointment

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.

Word Forms

• more ultimate
• most ultimate
• ultimates
• ultimating
• ultimated

Synonyms for ultimate

Antonyms for ultimate

Related Words

When Should You Use Ultimate?

Use ultimate when its meaning, tone and grammar fit the full sentence. A synonym is not always a direct replacement.

Practice This Word

Frequently Asked Questions