Word.ws English Dictionary

next to last

next to last adjective: penultimate, one before the end of a series, placed immediately before the end in a sequence.

Adjective

next to last (not comparable)

  1. (particularly US) Penultimate, one before the end of a series, placed immediately before the end in a sequence.
    • Go ahead and rest. We board the plane next to last.
    • This is the next-to-last night of my vacation.
    Synonyms:
    penultimate

Synonyms of next to last

Forms of next to last

alternative formnext-to-last

Questions about next to last

What does next to last mean?
Next to last means penultimate, one before the end of a series, placed immediately before the end in a sequence.
What part of speech is next to last?
Next to last is an adjective.

Words near next to last in the dictionary

  1. next sleeps
  2. next store
  3. next thing one knows
  4. next time
  5. next to
  6. next to last
  7. next to no time
  8. next to nothing
  9. next tomorrow
  10. next up
  11. next week, East Lynne

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: next to last (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: “next to last.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/next_to_last. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.