paenultima law
paenultima law noun: the rule of Classical Latin pronunciation which states that a word receives antepenultimate stress if its penult is a short or metrically light syllable, but receives penultimate stress if its penult is a long or metrically heavy syllable.
Noun
paenultima law (singulare tantum)
- The rule of Classical Latin pronunciation which states that a word receives antepenultimate stress if its penult is a short or metrically light syllable, but receives penultimate stress if its penult is a long or metrically heavy syllable.
- He calls attention to the large number of words found over and over again with a metrical accent which does not follow the ‘paenultima law’, but falls on the last syllable…or even on the fourth syllable from the end.1892, The Journal of Philology, XX, page 138
Forms of paenultima law
| alternative form | Paenultima law |
|---|---|
| alternative form | Paenultima Law |
| alternative form | penultima law |
| alternative form | Penultima law |
| alternative form | Penultima Law |
Origin of paenultima law
First attested in 1892; Latin paenultima (“penult”) + English law.
Questions about paenultima law
- What does paenultima law mean?
- Paenultima law means the rule of Classical Latin pronunciation which states that a word receives antepenultimate stress if its penult is a short or metrically light syllable, but receives penultimate stress if its penult is a long or metrically heavy syllable.
- What part of speech is paenultima law?
- Paenultima law is a noun.
Words near paenultima law in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: paenultima law (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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