Word.ws English Dictionary

last-names

last-names is the third-person singular simple present indicative of last-name.

Meaning of last-name

Verb

last-name (third-person singular simple present last-names, present participle last-naming, simple past and past participle last-named)

  1. (rare) To address by last name.
    • In some schools or businesses, inferiority is underscored by last-naming alone. Superiors receive [title + last name], but inferiors are called by their last names alone. If novels and mystery stories are to be believed, in England servants were often last-named without titles, as were students. As...1982, Elaine Chaika, “[Style of speech] The United States, a case in point”, in Language: The Social Mirror, Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House Publishers, Inc., →ISBN, page 49

Questions about last-names

What is last-names the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Last-names is the third-person singular simple present indicative of last-name.

Words near last-names in the dictionary

  1. last-mentioned
  2. last-minute
  3. last-name
  4. last-named
  5. last-nameless
  6. last-names
  7. last-naming
  8. last-time
  9. last-to-last
  10. last-wordism
  11. lastability

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: last-names (page history and authors); last-name (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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Cite this entry: “last-names.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/last-names. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.