Meanings
- uncountableA tendency or attempt to have the last word in any argument, decision, or endeavor.
The futility of last-wordism at the Court is reflected in the apparent shyness of past perpetrators: They do not make second attempts to get the last word.
2010, Ross E. Davies, “The Last Word”, in The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process, volume 2292 more examples
The restaurant-bar, serving American food, is a prime example of last-wordism. The entrance is embellished with lighted color photographs of a dozen or so major cities of the world, from San Francisco to Calcutta to Sydney, each with a big brass clock showing the time in that city.
1967, Sydney Clark, All the best in Hawaii, page 168Sad to relate, Colomb responded to this trenchant corrective with a graceless three-column exercise in last-wordism, in The Times of September the 7th. Maurice Bourke, convalescing at Battenberg's Rhineland Schloss, had "never read such rot as Columbus has written.
2013, Andrew Gordon, Paul Wilderson, The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command, →ISBN
Origin
Cite this entry
last-wordism. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/last-wordism
“last-wordism.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/last-wordism. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “last-wordism,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/last-wordism.
Source: last-wordism on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.