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Ultimate vs Nonpareil - What's the difference?

ultimate | nonpareil |

As adjectives the difference between ultimate and nonpareil

is that ultimate is final; last in a series while nonpareil is unequalled, unrivalled; unique.

As nouns the difference between ultimate and nonpareil

is that ultimate is the most basic or fundamental of a set of things while nonpareil is a person or thing that has no equal; a paragon.

ultimate

English

Adjective

(wikipedia ultimate) (-)
  • Final; last in a series.
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year= 1677 , isbn= , date= , author= (Robert Plot) , title= The natural history of Oxford-shire: Being an Essay Toward the Natural History of England , url= http://books.google.com/books?id=EUqd_M1x40QC&pg=PA15 , page= 15 , chapter= Of the Heavens and Air , passage= }}
  • (of a syllable) Last in a word or other utterance.
  • Being the greatest possible; maximum; most extreme.
    • the ultimate pleasure
    the ultimate disappointment
  • *
    • Hepaticology, outside the temperate parts of the Northern Hemisphere, still lies deep in the shadow cast by that ultimate "closet taxonomist," Franz Stephani—a ghost whose shadow falls over us all.
  • Being the most distant or extreme; farthest.
  • That will happen at some time; eventual.
  • Last in a train of progression or consequences; tended toward by all that precedes; arrived at, as the last result; final.
  • * Coleridge
    • those ultimate truths and those universal laws of thought which we cannot rationally contradict
  • Incapable of further analysis; incapable of further division or separation; constituent; elemental.
    • an ultimate constituent of matter

    Antonyms

    * proximate

    Derived terms

    * antepenultimate * penultimate * ultimateness

    Coordinate terms

    * (syllable adjectives)

    Related terms

    * ulterior * ultimatum * ultra * ultra-

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The most basic or fundamental of a set of things
  • The final or most distant point; the conclusion
  • The greatest extremity; the maximum
  • (uncountable) The sport of ultimate frisbee.

    • External links

    * *

    Anagrams

    * ----

    nonpareil

    English

    (wikipedia nonpareil)

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Unequalled, unrivalled; unique.
  • * 1996 , (David Foster Wallace), Infinite Jest , Abacus 2013, p. 33:
    • A veritable artist, possessed of a deftness nonpareil with cotton swab and evacuation-hypo, the medical attaché is known among the shrinking upper classes of petro-Arab nations as the DeBakey of maxillofacial yeast […].

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A person or thing that has no equal; a paragon.
  • * c.1599-1601 , (William Shakespeare), Twelfth Night; or, What You Will ,
    • My lord and master loves you. O, such love / Could be but recompens'd though you were crown'd / The nonpareil of beauty!
  • * , III.2.2.ii:
    • King John of France, once prisoner in England, came […] to see the Countess of Salisbury, the nonpareil of those times, and his dear mistress.
  • A small pellet of colored sugar used as decoration on baked goods and candy.
  • A small, flat chocolate drop covered with white pellets of sugar, similar to a comfit.
  • (obsolete, printing) A type size between minion and agate or ruby (roughly 6pt); nonpareille.
  • * 1881 May 19, Hermann Cohn, ,
    • I believe that letters which are less than a millimetre and a half (1/17 inch) high, will finally prove injurious to the eye. How little attention has hitherto been paid to this important subject is exemplified in the fact that even oculistic journals and books frequently contain nonpareil , or letters only a millimetre (1/25 inch) high.

    See also

    * (Nonpareils) *

    Synonyms

    * (pellet of colored sugar) * hundreds and thousands ((UK), Australian'', ''plural only ) * sprinkles (probably US'', ''plural only )