penultimate
adjective

- second from the last, next to last

(Cambridge Dictionary)

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English is full of words that are regularly subject to misuse. Most of the time it's because of words that sound similar, like pore and pour. Pore is a noun that refers to a very small hole in a surface and pour is a verb that means to make a substance flow. You don't pore the rest of your coffee down the drain and it's not the pours of your skin that become infected and then cause pimples.

Other commonly abused pairs include accept (to agree) and except (not including), affect (to change or make a difference) and effect (to bring about a result), as well as aural (related to the ears or hearing) and oral (related to the mouth, spoken).

You may add penultimate to this list, but for a slightly different reason. Because it contains the word "ultimate," some people think that penultimate means "the best." Here is an example from a San Francisco Symphony program description:

"All the otherworldly ability that Mozart possessed was brought to bear in the Jupiter Symphony, the final—and perhaps penultimate—symphony he produced."

Penultimate was formed from the Latin "paene" (almost) and "ultimus," thus literally meaning nearly the last thing in a series or group, or as it is used in modern English, the next to the last thing.

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Practice OWAD in a conversation today, say something like

"It's hard to believe, but this is Bob's PENULTIMATE week at the company before he retires."