antepenúltima

Antepenúltima is a Spanish feminine adjective meaning "third to last" or "penultimate but one." It describes the position of an item that is immediately before the second to last item in a sequence. For example, in a list of five items, the antepenúltima item would be the third item.

The word is formed by the prefix "ante-" meaning "before" and "penúltima," which itself comes from "pen-" meaning "almost" and "última" meaning "last." Thus, "antepenúltima" literally translates to "before almost last." Its masculine form is "antepenúltimo."

This term is most commonly used in Spanish-speaking countries to denote a specific position in a series. While English has "third to last," the single word "antepenultimate" is less frequently employed in everyday conversation compared to its Spanish counterpart. The concept, however, is universal in describing ordered sets. It is important to distinguish it from "penúltima" (second to last) and "última" (last).