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.
The idea is that, eventually, babies will learn to get themselves back to sleep without the parents intervening and, ultimately, that they get better sleep overall.
From Slate • May 3, 2026
OpenAI leaders ultimately decided not to contact authorities about the Texas teen.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 3, 2026
Attempts to secure federal support ultimately fell apart amid disagreement over the terms of a potential rescue.
From Salon • May 2, 2026
The replays seemed inconclusive, and anything but 'clear and obvious', but VAR asked Ferrieri Caputi to watch the incident on the pitchside monitor and she ultimately changed her decision to penalty.
From BBC • May 2, 2026
I didn’t want to see that change....I think more than anything else I was afraid of change itself rather than of any kind of conditions that change might ultimately bring about.”
From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson
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.
