ultimately
Britishadverb
Explanation
Ultimately means "at the very end of the process." Your strategy of robbing banks with a water gun worked a few times, but ultimately it was unsuccessful. Use ultimately when you want to stress that there are many different elements of something, but in the end there's one clear conclusion. The city parks department might listen to everyone's ideas for what to do with that empty lot, but ultimately they'll do whatever they think will serve the city best. Ultimately comes from the Latin ultimāre, meaning, lying at the very end.
Vocabulary lists containing ultimately
Tuesdays with Morrie
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Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
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Obama, on the 50th anniversary of 'Bloody Sunday'
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
This led to his arrest for sedition and, ultimately, his ongoing exile in America.
From Slate ● Sep. 20, 2026
The rapper said in a lengthy Instagram statement that after a week of "difficult conversations" with Sheeran that ultimately ended "in a place of fundamental disagreement", he was dropped from the lineup.
From BBC ● Sep. 20, 2026
No. 12 USC ultimately managed to escape Rutgers with a 42-35 win.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2026
For termites that spend almost their entire lives hidden from view, those biological clues may ultimately make them much harder to hide.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 19, 2026
Many African Americans today believe that uplift ideology worked in the past and ought to work again—forgetting that ultimately it took a major movement to end the last caste system, not simply good behavior.
From "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
