ultimate
adjective · noun
Simple meaning
Being the greatest possible.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhltuhmuhtSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈʌltəmət
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Being the greatest possible; maximum; most extreme.
not comparable
Final; last in a series.
Being the most distant or extreme; farthest.
noun
The final or most distant point; the conclusion
The greatest extremity; the maximum
The most basic or fundamental of a set of things
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Being the greatest possible; maximum; most extreme.
Used this way, ultimate is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use ultimate
- “The ultimate achievement.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
As the end result of a succession or process.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A game between two teams whose players try to toss a Frisbee to one another until they cross the opponents goal.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: being the greatest possible
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.