Definition 1: Coming before the next to last in a series. ("In" is the antepenultimate word in the previous sentence.) The noun is antepenult [æn-te-'pee-nêlt].

Usage 1: In rare cases, a single word is less efficient than several. This is one of those cases. It is easier to say "third from the end" than it is to say "antepenultimate" and you might be misunderstood if you use today's word. But still, this is a good piece to have in your lexical holster for those rare occasions when obfuscation is preferable to clarity.

Suggested usage: One of our favorite uses of this word is to embellish household chores. If you are the chef at your house, for example, you can glorify a minor meal with, "This is my antepenultimate meal of the day!" It allows you to outperform the average sports announcer: "It looked like our boys would take the game in the antepenultimate inning, but the next two undid them."

Etymology: From Late Latin antepaenultimus: ante- "preceding" and paenultimus "next to the last." "Penult" is used in English to mean the next to last in a series; specifically in linguistics, it means the next to last syllable in a word. (See "penultimate" in the Word of the Day Archive for the etymology of "penult.")