Word.ws English Dictionary

ulteriour

ulteriour is the obsolete spelling of ulterior.

Meaning of ulterior

Adjective

ulterior (not comparable)

  1. Situated beyond, or on the farther side.
    • It [Spain] was divided by the Romans into two provinces, Citeriour and Ulteriour, nearer and farther, that is, from Rome.1827, William C[hanning] Woodbridge, Emma Willard, “Hispania or Spain”, in Universal Geography, Ancient and Modern; on the Principles of Comparison and Classification, 2nd edition, Hartford, Conn....
    Antonyms:
    citerior
  2. Beyond what is obvious or evident.
    • Let a watch be contrived and constructed ever so ingeniously: be its parts ever so many, ever so complicated, ever so finely wrought, or artificially put together, it cannot go without a weight or spring, that is, without a force independent of, and ulteriour to, its mechanism.1810, William Paley, G[eorge] W[ilson] Meadley, “Of the Personality of the Deity”, in The Works of William Paley, D.D. in Five Volumes. With a Memoir of His Life, by G. W. Meadley, volume I...
  3. Being intentionally concealed so as to deceive.
    • Motives, of course, may be mixed; but this only means that a man aims at a variety of goals by means of the same course of action. Similarly a man may have a strong motive or a weak one, an ulterior motive or an ostensible one.1960, Richard Stanley Peters, “Motives and Motivation”, in The Concept of Motivation (Studies in Philosophical Psychology), 2nd edition, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; New York, N.Y.: Humanities...
    Antonyms:
    ostensible
  4. (archaic) Happening later; subsequent.
    • Their noble and grand Mightineſſes have thereby not only ſatisfied the general wiſhes of the greateſt and beſt part of the inhabitants of this province, but they have laid the foundations of ulteriour alliances and correſpondencies of friendſhip and of good underſtanding with the United States of...1782, “an American” [pseudonym], “Amsterdam. Address of the Merchants, &c. to Their Regency.”, in A Collection of State-papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United...
    Antonyms:
    prior

Questions about ulteriour

What is ulteriour the obsolete spelling of?
Ulteriour is the obsolete spelling of ulterior.

Words near ulteriour in the dictionary

  1. ulterior motives
  2. ulterior to
  3. ulteriority
  4. ulteriorly
  5. ulteriorness
  6. ulteriour
  7. ultilisation
  8. ultima
  9. Ultima East
  10. ultima ratio
  11. ultima thule

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ulteriour (page history and authors); ulterior (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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