This Sunday, let’s talk about a fashionable word… And even a word that can be found in all situations. One of those language tics that follow one another, that we hear, that we repeat, in short that are contagious, that we pass on like Covid or a sticky cold.
In this matter, everyone has their own annoyances. Many friends of words write to me to tell me how much the epidemic of “suddenly” exasperates them. A few weeks ago, we talked about this expression that annoys Stéphane Carpentier: “road castaways”. Well, what horrifies me at the moment is the ultimate invasion.
The straw that broke the camel’s back arrived by email, with an ad for shoes that presented themselves as my “ultimate armor to face winter”. No, but no joke. And above all, the day before, our proofreader jumped in the air upon discovering in one of M, the weekly magazine of Le Monde, this title: “Julianne Moore, ultimate actress”.
Ultimate = last
What is annoying about this adjective ? It’s not so much that we use it more than before, it’s that we use it wrongly. What is Ultimate? According to the Academy dictionary, the word arrives in the 14th century in French, coming from Latin the lastmeaning “the furthest beyond, the most remote; last”.
In current French, ultimate, it is “which is at the very end of something, which comes last; by extension, which constitutes a limit which cannot be exceeded”, explain the Immortals, who give examples: “The final stage of the Tour de France ends on the Champs-Élysées [ou] An appeal to the Supreme Court is possible as a last resort.” “The final hour is that of death.”
So. The ultimate is the last. The final hour is rarely the best! And the Tartempion boots are the “last” armor against the cold? Julianne Moore the “last” of all actresses? Oh no. In these two cases, as in many others which swarm and multiply in France at the speed of the Asian hornet, this use of the ultimate adjective is an Anglicism: this is the meaning of the word American ultimate which is used, out of snobbery. And it is this meaning which is winning, prevailing over the original meaning.
So what word should have been used in these two cases? Simply supreme. As the Academy writes, we say “to be in search of perfect happiness” not “ultimate happiness”, which would be the last.
One word, two meanings
Unfortunately, it’s a losing battle. Le Petit Larousse 2025 continues to define ultimate as “last, final”, but the Little Robertsince its 2024 edition, has added a second meaning, that of supreme. Of course, he says that it is an Anglicism, but this entry in the dictionary is the mark that this usage has taken hold, and it is the first step towards proper admission into the French vocabulary. .
-Ultimate would then have two different meanings: it’s weird, you might say. But this is already the case: the two meanings already coexist, as we have just seen. There is something, curiously, that allows them to be differentiated: when ultimate means “last” (its original meaning) it is often placed before the noun as in “Valérie has eaten the ultimate croissant”, and when it means “supreme “, it is often placed after “that, friends, is the ultimate croissant” (implied, we will never make a better one).
An adjective changing its meaning depending on its position in the sentence is a common thing. This is why a poor woman is not necessarily a poor woman, and why a great man is not always a great man! In short, French already has quite a few words that have several meanings… and after all, it’s not any worse off!
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