preantepenultimate

From pre- (prefix meaning ‘physically in front of, before’) +‎ antepenultimate (“(adjective) two before the last in a series; (noun) the second before the last in a series; (phonetics) syllable that comes two before the last in a word”).^[1]

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: prē'ăn'tĭpĭnŭlʹtĭmət, IPA^(key): /ˌpɹiːˌæntɪpɪˈnʌltɪmət/
• (General American) enPR: prē'ăn'tipənəlʹtəmət, prē'ăn'təpənəlʹtəmət, IPA^(key): /ˌpɹiˌæn(t)ipəˈnʌltɪmət/, /-(t)ə-/

• Audio (General American):

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• Rhymes: -ʌltɪmət
• Hyphenation: pre‧ant‧e‧pen‧ul‧tim‧ate

preantepenultimate (plural preantepenultimates)

1. (phonetics, obsolete, rare) Synonym of preantepenult (“the last syllable but three of a word or other utterance; the fourth-to-last syllable”). [from mid 18th c.]

   Synonym: preantepenultima

   • 1746, [Claude Lancelot, Antoine Arnauld, Pierre Nicole], “Of the Nature and Division of Accents, of Their General Analogy, and that They are Not to be Confounded with Quantity”, in [Thomas Nugent], transl., A New Method of Learning with Greater Facility the Greek Tongue: […], volume II, London: […] J[ohn] Nourse, […]; and G. Hawkins […], →OCLC, 2nd part (Of the Greek Accents), page 291:

     [I]f one vvas to ſay σῶματος, this vvould be all one as σόὸματος, and as if an Acute vvas placed on the Pre-antepenultimate, vvhich is never tolerated.

   • 1808, John Walker, “Terminational Vocabulary of Scripture Proper Names”, in A Key to the Classical Pronunciation of Greek, Latin, and Scripture Proper Names; […], 1st American edition, Philadelphia, Pa.: Hopkins and Earle, […]; Fry and Kammerer, printers, →OCLC, page 284:

     Accent the Preantepenultimate. Näamathite, Jezrëelite, Bethlehemite, Ephräimite, (Canäanite generally pronounced in three syllables, as if written Can-an-ite.)

   • 1864, Richard Wynn, “Teaching in America”, in Harold Benjamin, editor, Careers in Education (McGraw-Hill Series in Education), New York, N.Y.; Toronto, Ont.: McGraw-Hill Book Company, published 1960, →OCLC, page 91:

     Typical review questions for persons preparing for teacher examinations were posed in Stone's Examiner in 1864: […] Reading: What are Cognates? How would you teach them? What is the Antepenultimate? The Preantepenultimates? Define pitch.

• (names of syllables): ultima, ult (last); penultima, penultimate, penult (last but one); antepenultima, antepenultime, antepenultimate, antepenult (last but two); preantepenultima (præantepenultima), preantepenultimate, preantepenult (last but three); propreantepenultimate, propreantepenult (last but four)

preantepenultimate (not comparable)

1. (chiefly biology, phonetics) Three before the end; fourth to last. [from late 18th c.]
   • 1808, John Walker, “Terminational Vocabulary of Scripture Proper Names”, in A Key to the Classical Pronunciation of Greek, Latin, and Scripture Proper Names; […], 1st American edition, Philadelphia, Pa.: Hopkins and Earle, […]; Fry and Kammerer, printers, →OCLC, page 293:

     Words of this termination [-ites] have the accent of the words from which they are formed, which sometimes occasions the accent to be placed even on the preantepenultimate syllable, as Gileadites from Gilead, and so of others.

   • 1873 June 24 (date delivered), A[ndrew] Leith Adams, “I. On the Dentition and Osteology of the Maltese Fossil Elephants, being a Description of Remains Discovered by the Author in Malta between the Years 1860 and 1866.”, in Transactions of the Zoological Society of London, volume IX, part I, London: […] [F]or the [Zoological] Society [of London] […]; and by Messrs. Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, […], published November 1874 (1877 printing), →ISSN, →OCLC, page 10:

     With reference to the theoretical first or preantepenultimate milk-molar, rarely developed in either fossil or recent species, there is one very interesting specimen in the British Museum.

   • 1992, Ulrike Mosel, Even Hovdhaugen, “Phonology and Orthography”, in Samoan Reference Grammar‎^[1], Oslo, Norway: The Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture; Scandinavian University Press, →ISBN, page 27:

     In the tautala leaga [colloquial Samoan] the shortening of normal vowels in the antepenultimate and preantepenultimate syllables is very common.

   • 2011, Michele Loporcaro, “Syllable, Segment and Prosody”, in Martin Maiden, John Charles Smith, Adam Ledgeway, editors, The Cambridge History of the Romance Languages, volume I (Structures), Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 82:

     As in Italian, stress position is generally unaffected by clitics, so that (postlexical) PWs with preantepenultimate and even fifth-but-last stress occur, typically with the definite article: t'impurile 'times-the.NPL', v'everiţele 'squirrels-the.FPL'. As apparent from the last example, however, Romanian is unique among Romance languages in possessing lexical words (about twenty) with preantepenultimate stress […]

   • 2015, Ian McMillan, “Up the Hill to Paradise”, in Neither Nowt nor Summat: In Search of the Meaning of Yorkshire, London: Ebury Press, Ebury Publishing, published 2016, →ISBN, page 288:

     These sudden shifts in Yorkshire weather could be metaphors, as The Dog knew, for Good and Evil; and they could also tell you it's time to nip in for a plate of chips or an hour on the slots watching your last 2p piece just fail to knock your penultimate, your antepenultimate and your preantepenultimate 2p's back down the chute and clinking in your purse.

   • 2024, Timo Buchholz, “Huari Quechua”, in Intonation between Phrasing and Accent: Spanish and Quechua in Huari, Berlin; Boston, Mass.: Walter De Gruyter, →DOI, →ISBN, →ISSN, page 320:

     Here, [kaŋ] and [gam] are the preantepenultimate and the antepenultimate syllable in the phrase [pitu hitaraaykaanqanpita], respectively.

• (adjectives denoting syllables): ultimate (last), penultimate (last but one), antepenultimate (last but two), propreantepenultimate (last but four)