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I'm looking for a word that describes the state of not being last. A word that would apply to everything in an ordered list that is not the last thing in that list.

From

I wasn't the last person to finish the race.

to (the phrasing is off, but it seems to illustrate my point)

I was .. person to finish the race.

One word that comes to mind is "intermediate", but I don't think that includes the first item in a list.

Celos
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  • "I was the second to last to finish the race" has as an example "I was the fifty-seventh person to finish the race, out of 58". – Mitch Sep 02 '14 at 13:00
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    OP is looking for a word like penultimate but for the rest of the list bar the last - perhaps non-ultimate – mplungjan Sep 02 '14 at 13:04
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    I doubt there is a term that defines all positions except the last. –  Sep 02 '14 at 13:09
  • I'm not aware of a single word that expresses this idea. I'd just say "all but the last" or similar. – Jay Sep 02 '14 at 13:34
  • @mplungjan, exactly right. I'm looking to describe an object that has the only defining property of not being last in a list of similar objects. "Not last X" doesn't really sound right. – Celos Sep 02 '14 at 13:36
  • non-losing participant :) – SrJoven Sep 02 '14 at 13:52
  • Could you say "exists in the head of the list"? Note the preposition in, as opposed to at, which would indicate the very first item, specifically). It wouldn't be confusing to say the item appeared in the tail of the list to mean "not first", so perhaps "in the head" would work for "not last". – Dan Bron Sep 02 '14 at 13:53
  • You could try using "anteultimate" (not antepenultimate, which means 3rd to last), though that would effectively be to coin a word (i.e. no one else uses it or has used it). – Dan Bron Sep 02 '14 at 13:56
  • @DanBron anteultimate would be understood as penultimate, by anyone other than, well, what? "Director Fernando Di Leo’s anteultimate feature film before his filmmaking career ended in 1985 ..." (On soiledsinema: http://www.soiledsinema.com/2013/11/madness-1980.html?zx=417e76d05c6b79d8) See also: https://community.gaslampgames.com/threads/make-all-levers-in-the-roomsdb-unpushable.5801/ http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/The_Grenville_Papers_v3_1000707955/225 – Kris Sep 04 '14 at 09:04
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    comment because it's (possibly) not a real word, but has usage support: pre-final – SrJoven Sep 05 '14 at 18:20

2 Answers2

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In formal writing, esp., in the fields of programming, linguistics, the word non-final is already in use.

On Stackoverflow (java):

What is (a) non-final variable?

In René Kager, A Metrical Theory of Stress and Destressing in English and Dutch (Lingistics) -- Google Books:

… if the rightmost stress is on the final syllable, the primary stress can either be on the final syllable (112a), or on the rightmost stressed non-final syllable (112b) … [emphasis added]

[EDIT]
See also ***** :
medial on ODO

1.2 Phonetics (Of a speech sound) in the middle of a word:
A total of 15 items were included on this task requiring students to delete initial, medial, and final phonemes from words [emphasis added]

Although medial, tends to suggest something closer to the middle, it's not necessarily so. In the example above, anything that is not initial or final is referred to as medial.

***** However, medial excludes the initial, which is why it is not a candidate for the OP's case.

Community
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Kris
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    While this answer could be slightly confusing in context (as I'm looking for a way to name a Java variable and non-final does not refer to order there), it fits perfectly. – Celos Sep 02 '14 at 14:02
  • +1 But when your getting close to the end, you can always fall back on those commonplace terms, penultimate and antepenultimate. – bib Sep 02 '14 at 15:44
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    @bib penultimate and similar words are specific to a single position and thus cannot apply to a general case of 'other than the last.' – Kris Sep 03 '14 at 05:26
  • @Kris That is why I said when you're getting close to the end ... [misspelled in the original]. They are both explicit to position. That is why it was offered as a [tongue-in-cheek] comment rather than an answer. And I realize my cheeks were not visible, but I hate emoticons. – bib Sep 03 '14 at 14:41
  • The stack overflow reference is incorrect. The terms final and non-final in that context are closer synonyms to static and dynamic, as opposed to last and not-last. – Terrabits Aug 19 '20 at 01:18
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The phrase "also-ran" springs to mind which, although is directly referencing a running race, has also come to mean "one of the many other competitors that was not placed first" in any general competition not necessarily just running...

Example: "I was one of the also-rans..."

Marv Mills
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    This word describes the property of not being first. I'm looking for something both more general and something that describes the property of not being last. – Celos Sep 02 '14 at 13:46