Penultimate, antepenultimate, what next??

[jhaynes74]

What is the word that describes an event BEFORE the antepenultimate event?

[Robert G]

I can only think that it could be simply: anteantepenultimate. Either that or: third from last.

[jno]

antepenultimate is third from last. Maybe pre-antepenultimate? I just made it up but it would be as good as anything else for fourth from last.

[Robert G]

You're correct, jno. I wasn't thinking clearly! But I prefer 'fourth from last' because the phrase is instantly understood.

[jno]

at this time of night it's hard enough counting forwards...

[sddsddean]

Ask Murray Walker. He famously said someone was "on the penultimate last lap but one!".

[woofgang]

subantepenultimate?

[woofgang]

just googled, jno is right!

[ludwig]

I had a teacher who always made a point of doing this whenever he was reading out test questions..

and the preantepenultimate question is...
and the antepenultimate question is..
and the penultimate question is..
and the ultimate question is..

he was a bit of a n0b really.

[espookid]

To ludwig
may be the teacher was a nOb but you learned from him

[goodheartduck]

ultimate
penultimate
antepenultimate
preantepenultimate
propreantepenultimate
These are all the ones I can find now. I visited this problem a decade or so ago. I could swear there was one after (or should I say before?) propreantepenultimate, but I suspect that might be an artifact of an imperfect memory stack. Propreantepenultimate itself is so very rarely used that adding another level of verbal arcana would be ridiculous.