aftermost

English

Etymology

Old English æftemest

Adjective

aftermost (not comparable)

1. (nautical) Nearest the stern of a vessel.

   Synonym: hindmost

   Antonym: foremost

   • 1644, Henry Manwayring, The Sea-mans Dictionary‎^[1], London: John Bellamy, page 101:

     All the after-most part of the ship, is called the sterne (by a generall appellation) but most exactly considered, only the very outwardmost part abaft is the sterne;

   • 1789, Olaudah Equiano, chapter 4, in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano‎^[2], volume 1, London, page 148:

     My station during the engagement was on the middle-deck, where I was quartered with another boy, to bring powder to the aftermost gun;

   • 1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, “chapter 8”, in Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London, Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886, →OCLC, page 68:

     […] at night I slept on a blanket thrown on the deck boards at the aftermost end of the round-house, and right in the draught of the two doors.

2. (obsolete) Most recent.
   • 1653, Peter English, The Survey of Policy, Leith, Section 1, Subsection 1, p. 99,^[3]

     In this sense Aristotle’s words hold good, if he refer the former part of the fourth species to the after-most times and ultimat center of Heroicisme, and the latter part to the prior, though not to the first times thereof.

   • 1663, Clement Barksdale, Memorials of Worthy Persons‎^[4], Oxford, page 78:

     Now whiles I was taken up with these anxious thoughts, a messenger […] came to me from the Lord Denny […] , my after-most Honourable Patron, entreating me from his Lordship to speak with him.

Adverb

aftermost (not comparable)

1. (obsolete) At the very back.
   • 1627, Henry Ainsworth, Annotations upon the Five Bookes of Moses, the Booke of the Psalmes, and the Song of Songs‎^[5], London: John Bellamy, Genesis 33, page 122:

     And he put the handmaids and their children, first: and Leah and her children, after; and Rachel and Ioseph, aftermost.