penultimate

Other forms of penultimate

plural

penultimates·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about penultimate

What does penultimate mean?

penultimate means "the next to last syllable in a word". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in penultimate?

penultimate has 4 syllables: pe-nul-ti-mate. The stress falls on "nul". In IPA it is /pɛˈnʌltəmət/.

What is another word for penultimate?

Close synonyms include penult, penultima, next-to-last. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is penultimate a common word?

penultimate is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.