Ultrasuprapropreantepenultimate

Today is the 30th of December and the penultimate day of the year. I have always liked the word penultimate. It means “next to last” or “second to last.”

People confuse penultimate and ultimate, believing the prefix “pen-” emphasises the word “ultimate”. This is not the case, as the "pen-’ prefix means “almost”, and thus “penultimate” means “next to last.” “Ultimate” is a much more flexible word that can mean “last,” “fundamental,” “utmost,” and more. However, you may occasionally hear the word penultimate used as an intensified version of ultimate, as in “a race they’ve called ‘the penultimate challenge.’”

If you want to know what the last before the last is called, it is antepenultimate, two before the last. So, for example, if a book has ten chapters, the eighth chapter is the antepenultimate one. This word is derived from ante- meaning before, pen- from the Latin paene, meaning almost and ultimate from the Latin ultimus, meaning last.

And I can keep on going with this silliness, with preantepenultimate being the third before the last, propreantepenultimate - the fourth before the last, suprapropreantepenultimate - the fifth before the last, and ultrasuprapropreantepenultimate - sixth before the last.

I will stop here. I might like using the word penultimate, but I can’t see myself using the term ultrasuprapropreantepenultimate.