[f. prec. or L. ultimāt-, ppl. stem of ultimāre (cf. It. ultimare, Sp. and Pg. ultimar to finish).]
1. trans. To carry to an end; to complete.
1849. E. H. Sears, Regeneration, III. i. (1859), 131. Works are filled and vitalized by that angelic benevolence which is not complete until clothed and ultimated in action.
1866. Bessie R. Parkes, Vignettes, 399. My parents had seen my education ultimated in practical life.
1881. E. S. Holden, Sir W. Herschel, 53. His researches on the construction of the heavens would have been made; those were in his brain, and must have been ultimated.
refl. 1860. Emerson, Cond. Life, viii. 169. It is the soundness of the bones that ultimates itself in a peach-bloom complexion.
1880. Howells, Undisc. Country, iii. 50. A ferment of the kind he speaks of in the world of spirits would be more apt to ultimale itself here in the mind than in the stomach.
1885. L. Oliphant, Sympneumata, 14. The moral forces which ultimate themselves dynamically in the actions of men.
2. intr. To result finally; to end (in something).
c. 1834. A. H. Stephens, in Johnston & Browne, Life (1878), 95. How the thing will ultimate I cannot tell.
1868. L. Oliphant, Lett., in Life (1891), viii. II. 41. We have no place here for those who like to meditate, unless the meditation ultimates in useful works.
1887. Pop. Sci. Monthly, Aug., 564/2. Believing that they … must ultimate … in an increase of egoism.
