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ultimate

1. Farthest; most remote in space or time; extreme; last; final. My harbor, and my ultimate repose. (milton) Many actions apt to procure fame are not conductive to this our ultimate happiness. (Addison)

2. Last in a train of progression or consequences; tended toward by all that precedes; arrived at, as the last result; final. Those ultimate truths and those universal laws of thought which we can not rationally contradict. (Coleridge)

3. Incapable of further analysis; incapable of further division or separation; constituent; elemental; as, an ultimate constituent of matter.

(Science: chemistry) Ultimate analysis, organic analysis. See Organic. Ultimate belief. See Belief.

(Science: mathematics) Ultimate ratio, the limiting value of a ratio, or that toward which a series tends, and which it does not pass.

Synonym: Final, conclusive. See Final.

Origin: LL. Ultimatus last, extreme, fr. L. Ultimare to come to an end, fr. Ultimus the farthest, last, superl. From the same source as ulterior. See Ulterior, and cf. Ultimatum.