Learn English – A word to describe someone or something that is not last

adjectives

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.

Best Answer

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.

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