In English we already know that the initial three items in a sequence: first, second, and “third, are identified in a different way than then next however-many (fourth, fifth, and so on). But what about the other end of a sequence? Other than last, next to last, second from last, and the rest, can English provide any other ways to identify the items winding down to the end of a list?
Of course it can! Because, come on, would I have written the question if I didn’t already have an interesting and annoyingly obscure answer? The final item in a sequence is the “ultimate,” which comes from the Latin word “ultimare” (come to an end). To continue marching from there toward the beginning, we can just begin to apply a series of prefixes. The “penultimate” item is next to last. “Pen-” comes from the Latin “paene” (almost). One more step and we have the “antepenultipmate,” where “ante-” is Latin yet again, meaning “previous.” And if “fourth from the end” is much too obvious for you, just use “preantepenultimate” — the “pre” is from the Latin “prae-” (before).
These are are actual words, in the sense that they’re seriously used and even appear dictionaries (not that the dictionary part is a requirement, at least in English). They’re used in a particular field not too many people are familiar with: linguistics. This is from a 1791 text by John Walker, who evidently is quite famous in the field: “These words have the antepenultimate and preantepenultimate accent, which has generally a shortening power, as in privilege, primitive, prevalency, &c.”
Very rarely, you might see one of these sequence words outside the linguistics field (and outside of zoology, where they’re also evidently used). Here’s a 1977 passage from the Berkshire Eagle, a newspaper published in Pittsfield, MA:
“While it was gratifying to see the return of the John H. Rice column to the pages of the Eagle, it was disappointing to have a typographical error mangle the sense of his pre-antepenultimate paragraph.”
In linguistics, though, they didn’t stop at “preantepenultimate” for the fourth from the end. This is from A General Critical Grammar of the Inglish Language on a System Novel and Extensive. It’s a text by Samuel Oliver, published in 1825:
“In its minute divisions, accent is ultimate, penultimate, antepenultimate, preantepenultimate, propreantepenultimate.”
I don’t know whether “propreantepenultimate” is still in use among linguists — after all, Oliver (who seems to have coined it himself) broke a rule. The additional prefix “pro-” is not another Latin addition. “Pro-” has Greek roots, and means “before.” Also, speaking of rules and standards… “INGLISH”? Maybe Oliver was shunned by his peers, and his book included the ultimate or penultimate appearance of “propreantepenultimate.”
And now that we know the sequence, we can count backwards almost any length. See if you can find the antepropreantepenultimate instance of “ultimate.”
