forelast

See also: föreläst

English

Alternative forms

• fore-last

Etymology

From fore- +‎ last. In some instances of more recent use, perhaps also a calque of German vorletzte or Dutch voorlaatst.

Adjective

forelast (not comparable)

1. (rare, now possibly nonstandard) Next to last, second to last.

   Synonym: penultimate

   • 1633, Charles Butler, The English Grammar, Oxford, page 57, spelling modernized:

     Certain disyllables, being both Nouns and Verbs, are distinguished by the Accent: the Verb having it in the last, and the Noun in the fore-last […]

   • 1909, Oscar Sonneck, compiler, Report on the "Star-Spangled Banner", "Hail Columbia", "America", "Yankee Doodle", Washington: Government Printing Office, page 73:

     The only difference between the 12 song books selected, which is at all worth mentioning, is that Aiken, Gantvoort, Jepson, Ripley, Zeiner have in the forelast bar—[sheet music] whereas […]

   • 2012 [1973], J.M.R. Detry, Exercise Testing and Training in Coronary Heart Disease, Springer Netherlands, →ISBN, page 44:

     [T]he ${\dot {V}}_{O_{2}}$ increased continuously until the end of the exercise test and the values collected during the forelast minute are 95% of the maximal values during the last minute of the text.

   • 2012 [1992], Konrad Jacobs, Discrete Stochastics, Springer Basel AG, →ISBN, page 36:

     The second statement is a special case of the forelast, and the forelast one follows from the last, whose proof is obvious […]

   • 2003 [2002], Joseph O'Connor, Star of the Sea, Orlando: Harcourt, →ISBN, page 270:

     when the blight came on the crop the summer forelast he would not help us.