Nuts and Bolts: antepenult, penult, ultima.

This sounds terribly complicated, but actually it's as simple as a fried egg.

In a word of three syllables - like, for instance, the word syllables - then the first syllable (syll, in this case) is called the antepenult; the second syllable, (a), is called the penult; and the last, (bles), is called the ultima.

There's no particular point in naming syllables in this way if you're speaking English, though it does have some relevance if you're trying to pronounce Latin or Ancient Greek.

Still, antepenult, penult, ultima...it's one of those useless bits of information that's really quite cool, isn't it?

Words To Cherish Today: antepenult, penult, and ultima. Ultima [syllaba] means last syllable in Latin. Penult is short for paenultima, paena meaning almost, and antepenult is short for antepaenultima, ante meaning before.