furthest or highest in degree or order; utmost or extreme; the ultimate achievement; the ultimate question; man's ultimate destiny; the ultimate insult; one's ultimate goal in life'

the finest or most superior quality of its kind; the ultimate in luxury'

being the last or concluding element of a series; the ultimate sonata of that opus; a distinction between the verb and noun senses of `conflict' is that in the verb the stress is on the ultimate (or last) syllable'