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antepenultimatum

antepenultimatum noun: a statement of terms or conditions made by one party to another, essentially a penultimatum, but even more tentative and more repeatedly abandoned in favour of subsequent ignominious compromises.

Noun

antepenultimatum (plural antepenultimatums or antepenultimata)

  1. (commonly satirical) A statement of terms or conditions made by one party to another, essentially a penultimatum, but even more tentative and more repeatedly abandoned in favour of subsequent ignominious compromises.
    • THE RUSSIAN ULTIMATUM. We are constantly hearing of some fresh ultimatum being proposed by the Russian Government, so that what was considered a fortnight since the real ultimatum, must, now that another has been offered, be called the penultimatum; and next week, when a third one will probably...1853 Diogenes - Issue 2706, Volume 2 - Page 14
    • "If you do not submit my claim to arbitration," wrote the President of Omohu to the President of Modugy, "I shall take immediate steps to collect it in my own way!"
      "Sir," replied the President of Modugy, "you may go to the devil with your threat of war."
      "My great and good friend," wrote the...1898 Ambrose Bierce: Fantastic fables

Forms of antepenultimatum

pluralantepenultimatums
pluralantepenultimata

Origin of antepenultimatum

From ante- + penultimatum.

Questions about antepenultimatum

What does antepenultimatum mean?
Antepenultimatum means a statement of terms or conditions made by one party to another, essentially a penultimatum, but even more tentative and more repeatedly abandoned in favour of subsequent ignominious compromises.
What part of speech is antepenultimatum?
Antepenultimatum is a noun.
What is the plural of antepenultimatum?
The plural of antepenultimatum is antepenultimatums.

Words near antepenultimatum in the dictionary

  1. antepenultimas
  2. antepenultimata
  3. antepenultimate
  4. antepenultimately
  5. antepenultimates
  6. antepenultimatum
  7. antepenultimatums
  8. antepenultime
  9. antepenults
  10. antepetalous
  11. antephialtic

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: antepenultimatum (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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