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Ultimate vs Maximal - What's the difference?

ultimate | maximal |

As adjectives the difference between ultimate and maximal

is that ultimate is final; last in a series while maximal is largest, greatest (in magnitude), highest, most.

As nouns the difference between ultimate and maximal

is that ultimate is the most basic or fundamental of a set of things while maximal is (mathematics) the element of a set with the greatest magnitude.

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)

    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.
  • Anagrams

    * ----

    maximal

    English

    Adjective

    (head)
  • Largest, greatest (in magnitude), highest, most.
  • Antonyms

    * minimal

    Derived terms

    * submaximal

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (mathematics) The element of a set with the greatest magnitude.
  • (mathematics) Said of an ideal of a ring or a filter of a lattice : that it is as large as it can be without being trivial (improper).
  • (logic) Said of a set of well-formed formulas'': that it is as large as it can be without being inconsistent; i.e. that for any well-formed formula ''φ'', the set contains either ''φ'' or ~''φ .
  • Synonyms

    * maximum ----