May 15, 2003

pessimal

/pes´im·l/ adj.

[Latin-based antonym for optimal] Maximally bad. This is a pessimal situation. Also pessimize vt. To make as bad as possible. These words are the obvious Latin-based antonyms for optimal and optimize, but for some reason they do not appear in most English dictionaries, although ‘pessimize’ is listed in the OED.

Posted by Jargon File at May 15, 2003 10:35 AM

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