Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use penultimate in a sentence

16 example sentences · adjective, noun

Penultimate means next to last, second to last; immediately preceding the end of a sequence, list, etc. Example: “While the final episode was made, the show itself was immediately cancelled after the penultimate episode i.e. the final episode never aired.”

Examples of penultimate by meaning

adjectivePre-eminent, ultimate, best; par excellence, top-quality.

  • This Book is the Proud Purple Penultimate!!1907 Gelett Burgess Are You a Bromide? (New York: B. W. Heubsch) cover blurb
  • This treatment, where two therapists massage the body using warm oils infused with plant extracts, is truly the penultimate experience.2002 January, Claire Holt, "California Driving", Los Angeles →ISSN volume 47 no 1 p. 84
  • Ultimately, I reach the most penultimate existential questions: “What is the meaning of this?2022 February 10, Ethan Marshall, “Is written media dead?”, in The Glasgow Guardian

nounA penult, a next to last, particularly.

  • Our Lutheran concern for the ultimates (the Gospel) has allowed us to neglect some of the penultimates (bodily healing), failing to stress the total implications of that ultimate Gospel.1962, Minutes of the Adjourned Meeting of 22nd Biennial Convention of the United Lutheran Church in America, XXII.iv

More sentences with penultimate

  • While the final episode was made, the show itself was immediately cancelled after the penultimate episode i.e. the final episode never aired.From the entry i.e.
  • Subsequent intramolecular cyclization of strictosidine yielded strictosamide, a penultimate precursor of CAM formation in C.2015 August 8, “Molecular Cloning, Heterologous Expression, and Functional Characterization of an NADPH-Cytochrome P450 Reductase Gene…. From the entry strictosamide
  • The penultimate row provides chi-square tests of the difference between ES and CG engagements.2015 Dec, Dimson, Elroy, Karakaş, Oğuzhan, Xi Li, “Active Ownership.”, in Review of Financial Studies, volume 28, number 12, page 3239. From the entry prepenultimate
  • Throughout her penultimate and final years of medical school, she’d been consumed with visions of herself as a house officer.2023, Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, A Spell of Good Things, Canongate Books, page 21. From the entry house officer
  • It came down to the penultimate game of the year, FCK away at Brondby, and Brondby blew it.2003, David Goldblatt, World Soccer Yearbook 2003-2004, →ISBN. From the entry fck
  • The Bacchic cry of Euoi is not too dissimilar to Jesus' penultimate cry, while on the cross, of Eloi, Eloi.2001, Ralph Ellis, K2: Quest of the Gods. From the entry euoi
  • A break after the penultimate syllable of the foot has a tendency to render less objectionable a break after the auslaut.1907 March 23, Leon Josiah Richardson, “The Eleven-syllable Alcaic”, in Horace’s Alcaic Strophe (University of California Publications…. From the entry auslaut
  • But soon there will be a new clickbait queen, as HBO's Game of Thrones gears up for its penultimate season this weekend.2017 July 14, Josh Kupecki, “Stream Analysis”, in The Austin Chronicle, page 43. From the entry valar dohaeris
  • In Latin polysyllabic words are stressed on the penultimate syllable if this is long; otherwise on the propenultimate syllable, provided that there is one.1997, Georg Capellanus, Rod McLeod, Latin Can be Fun (Facetiae Latinae): A Modern Conversational Guide (Sermo Hodiernus Antique Redditus). From the entry propenultimate
  • The Kurpians and some of the Mazovians put such an emphasis on the penultimate note of the song that the last note becomes almost inaudible.1992, Czesław Halski, Folk Music in Poland: Songs, Dances, Instruments: a Study of Their Origins and Their Development, London: Polish…. From the entry Kurpian
  • Our penultimate perambulation took us to the sanctuary of CERES in East Brunswick, where we meandered around a Covidly quiet demonstration project on the first day of winter.2020, Samuel Alexander, Brendan Gleeson, Urban Awakenings: Disturbance and Enchantment in the Industrial City, Singapore: Palgrave…. From the entry Covidly
  • Pandora's box of holocausts gracefully cruising satellite infested heavens, waiting, the season of the button, the penultimate migration, radioactive perfumes for the fashionably, for the terminally, insane.1984, “Fugazi”, in Fish (lyrics), Fugazi, performed by Marillion. From the entry button

Meaning of penultimate

  1. adjective Next to last, second to last; immediately preceding the end of a sequence, list, etc.
  2. adjective Of or pertaining to a penult.
  3. adjective Relating to or denoting an element of a related collection of curves that is arbitrarily close to a degenerate form.

Full definition of penultimate

Questions about penultimate in a sentence

How do you use penultimate in a sentence?
Penultimate is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “While the final episode was made, the show itself was immediately cancelled after the penultimate episode i.e. the final episode never aired.”
What is a short sentence with penultimate?
“This Book is the Proud Purple Penultimate!!”
What does penultimate mean?
Penultimate means next to last, second to last; immediately preceding the end of a sequence, list, etc.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: penultimate (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use penultimate in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/penultimate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.