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.
A deal had been reached with the real estate firm allowing Abascal to return home at a lower rent, but she ultimately spent her final days in hospital.
From Barron's ● Oct. 8, 2026
And by definition, the committees will always be the last on an emerging asset class, because ultimately they need to see it become more mainstream.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026
"By revealing this previously hidden soft X-ray phase, Einstein Probe opens a new window for studying neutron star merger remnants and may ultimately help constrain the neutron star equation-of-state."
From Science Daily ● Oct. 8, 2026
“I don’t have rose-colored glasses about it, it’s imperfect, like anything else. But ultimately, for a couple of hours, it’s a utopia for the girls.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2026
A particular sequence of DNA—ACT-GAC-CAC-GTG—was therefore used to build an RNA chain, and the RNA chain was translated into a chain of amino acids, ultimately leading to the construction of a protein.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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.
