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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

pessimal en · ADJ

Pronunciation

  • /ˈpɛ.sɪ.məl/
  • (Southern-England) audio
  • /ˈpɛ.sə.məl/

Etymology

From Latin pessimus (“worst”) + -al, modeled on optimal.

Meanings

  1. (not-comparable) Bad to a maximal extent; worst.
    • "Optimal and Pessimal Orderings of Steiner Triple Systems in Disk Arrays 1998, Bela Bolloas, “Modern Graph Theory”, in LATIN 2000: Theoretical Informatics:
    • Calculated in this way, a security value represents a pessimal view of possibilities. 1989, Peter C. Ordeshook, Gregory F. Rose, Emerson M. Niou, The balance of power: Stability in international systems:
    • …the limiting solution is a pessimal solution because the value of the objective function associated with it is zero. 2019, Suresh P. Sethi, Optimal Control Theory: Applications to Management Science and Economics:

Antonyms

ideal · best · optimal

Deriveds

pessimally

Relateds

pessimality · pessimize · pessimist · pessimism · pessimistic · pessimum