Ultra

How to spell ultra

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce ultra

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does ultra mean?

1. adjectiveGoing beyond what is usual, normal, or moderate; extreme.
2. nounA person who holds extreme views, especially in politics.

Ultra in a sentence

• adjective

  The brand launched an ultra lightweight version of the laptop.

• noun

  Every ultra in the party refused to compromise with the moderates.

• adjective

  His diet had become so ultra that his doctor grew concerned.

• noun

  The newspaper labelled him an ultra for his uncompromising stance.

Where does ultra come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes straight from the Latin ultra, an adverb and preposition meaning 'beyond' or 'on the far side of', closely related to ulterior 'further off' and ultimus 'last, farthest'. For centuries English used it only as a bound prefix, attaching it to other words to mean 'going beyond a normal limit', as in ultraviolet (light beyond the violet end of the spectrum) or ultrasonic (sound beyond the range of human hearing). In the early 1800s, during the turbulent politics of Restoration France, the prefix was clipped loose to stand on its own: an ultra was an ultra-royalist, someone whose views ran past the ordinary boundary. From that political beginning the standalone word broadened into a general adjective meaning 'extreme' and a noun for an extremist. Because the spelling simply preserves the tidy Latin original, it holds no silent letters or surprises.

How the word is built

• ultra (Latin: beyond, on the far side of), used in English as a standalone clipping of compounds such as ultra-radical