Word.ws English Dictionary

preantepenultimate

Syllables: pre·ant·e·pen·ul·tim·ateUK/ˌpɹiːˌæntɪpɪˈnʌltɪmət//ˌpɹiˌæntipəˈnʌltɪmət/

preantepenultimate noun: synonym of preantepenult (“the last syllable but three of a word or other utterance; the fourth-to-last syllable”).

preantepenultimate: synonym of preantepenult (“the last syllable but three of a word or other utterance; the...
Image: Jeffrey Ng, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

preantepenultimate (plural preantepenultimates)

  1. (obsolete, rare) Synonym of preantepenult (“the last syllable but three of a word or other utterance; the fourth-to-last syllable”).
    • [I]f one vvas to ſay σῶματος, this vvould be all one as σόὸματος, and as if an Acute vvas placed on the Pre-antepenultimate, vvhich is never tolerated.1746, [Claude Lancelot, Antoine Arnauld, Pierre Nicole], “Of the Nature and Division of Accents, of Their General Analogy, and that They are Not to be Confounded with Quantity”, in [Thomas Nugent]...
    • Accent the Preantepenultimate. Näamathite, Jezrëelite, Bethlehemite, Ephräimite, (Canäanite generally pronounced in three syllables, as if written Can-an-ite.)1808, John Walker, “Terminational Vocabulary of Scripture Proper Names”, in A Key to the Classical Pronunciation of Greek, Latin, and Scripture Proper Names; […], 1st American edition, Philadelphia...

Adjective

preantepenultimate (not comparable)

  1. Three before the end; fourth to last.
    • Words of this termination [-ites] have the accent of the words from which they are formed, which sometimes occasions the accent to be placed even on the preantepenultimate syllable, as Gileadites from Gilead, and so of others.1808, John Walker, “Terminational Vocabulary of Scripture Proper Names”, in A Key to the Classical Pronunciation of Greek, Latin, and Scripture Proper Names; […], 1st American edition, Philadelphia...
    • With reference to the theoretical first or preantepenultimate milk-molar, rarely developed in either fossil or recent species, there is one very interesting specimen in the British Museum.1873 June 24 (date delivered), A[ndrew] Leith Adams, “I. On the Dentition and Osteology of the Maltese Fossil Elephants, being a Description of Remains Discovered by the Author in Malta between the...

Examples of preantepenultimate in a sentence

  • In the tautala leaga [colloquial Samoan] the shortening of normal vowels in the antepenultimate and preantepenultimate syllables is very common.1992, Ulrike Mosel, Even Hovdhaugen, “Phonology and Orthography”, in Samoan Reference Grammar, Oslo, Norway: The Institute for Comparative...
  • As apparent from the last example, however, Romanian is unique among Romance languages in possessing lexical words (about twenty) with preantepenultimate stress […]2011, Michele Loporcaro, “Syllable, Segment and Prosody”, in Martin Maiden, John Charles Smith, Adam Ledgeway, editors, The Cambridge...
  • Here, [kaŋ] and [gam] are the preantepenultimate and the antepenultimate syllable in the phrase [pitu hitaraaykaanqanpita], respectively.2024, Timo Buchholz, “Huari Quechua”, in Intonation between Phrasing and Accent: Spanish and Quechua in Huari, Berlin; Boston, Mass....

Synonyms of preantepenultimate

Forms of preantepenultimate

pluralpreantepenultimates

Origin of preantepenultimate

From pre- (prefix meaning ‘physically in front of, before’) + antepenultimate (“(adjective) two before the last in a series; (noun) the second before the last in a series; (phonetics) syllable that comes two before the last in a word”).

Words that rhyme with preantepenultimate

Questions about preantepenultimate

What does preantepenultimate mean?
Preantepenultimate means synonym of preantepenult (“the last syllable but three of a word or other utterance; the fourth-to-last syllable”).
How do you use preantepenultimate in a sentence?
In the tautala leaga [colloquial Samoan] the shortening of normal vowels in the antepenultimate and preantepenultimate syllables is very common.
What part of speech is preantepenultimate?
Preantepenultimate can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce preantepenultimate?
Preantepenultimate is pronounced /ˌpɹiːˌæntɪpɪˈnʌltɪmət/ (UK).
What is the plural of preantepenultimate?
The plural of preantepenultimate is preantepenultimates.

Words near preantepenultimate in the dictionary

  1. preannouncing
  2. preanorexic
  3. preantennal
  4. preantepenult
  5. preantepenultima
  6. preantepenultimate
  7. preantepenultimates
  8. preantepenults
  9. preanthesis
  10. preantibiotic
  11. preantiquity

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: preantepenultimate (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-preantepenultimate.wav.

Cite this entry: “preantepenultimate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/preantepenultimate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.