ultimately

ul·tim·ate·ly/ˈʌl.tɪ.mɪt.li/adverb

ultimately is spelled U-L-T-I-M-A-T-E-L-Y, 4 syllables: ul·tim·ate·ly. The wrong spelling people search most is ultimely: about 10 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 182 of all searches for the word. Ultimately is an adverb meaning “Indicating the last item”.

How many letters and syllables are in ultimately?

Letters	10: U-L-T-I-M-A-T-E-L-Y
Syllables	4: ul·tim·ate·ly
In writing	37 times per million words; the 2,618th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched	1; the most searched, ultimely, about 10 Bing searches a month (all of them)

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).

How do you spell ultimately?

Ultimately is spelled U-L-T-I-M-A-T-E-L-Y. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 182 of the searches for ultimately in either form.

ultimatelythe right spelling1,810 searches a month

ultimelya missing a, a missing t10 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

How common is ultimately?

Ultimately appears 37 times per million words in written English, the 2,618th most frequent word form in the list.

ultimately0.0010.010.11101001,00010,000

rarerper million words of written Englishmore common

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce ultimately?

UK /ˈʌl.tɪ.mɪt.lɪ/
UK /ˈʌl.tɪ.mət.li/
US /ˈʌl.tɪ.mɪt.li/

Ultimately has 4 syllables, split ul·tim·ate·ly in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-ultimately.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What does ultimately mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adverb

1
Indicating the last item.
Firstly,… Secondly,… Ultimately,…
2
Indicating the most important action.
Ultimately, he will have to make a decision before the end of the week.
3
In the end; finally.
4
Used to indicate the etymon at which a given etymological derivation terminates.
Cognate to Gottscheerish boßər, bàsser. Ultimately cognate to standard High German Wasser.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Ultimately in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

Language	Words
French	ultimo (indicating the last item)
German	schließlich (indicating the last item), letztendlich (indicating the most important action)
Portuguese	finalmente, no fim das contas (indicating the last item), principalmente (indicating the most important action)
Spanish	finalmente, por último, últimamente (indicating the last item), a fin de cuentas, al fin y al cabo, en última instancia (indicating the most important action)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does ultimately come from?

From ultimate + -ly.