innermost

1. 1
   adjective

   Superlative of inner.

   The innermost layer of the onion was the sweetest part of all.

   He finally shared his innermost thoughts with his closest friend.

   Note

   A superlative built with -most rather than -est. Old English had innemest, and Middle English reshaped it to match inner, so it now reads as inner plus -most. Like inner, it works in two worlds. One is physical, as in the innermost layer of an onion. The other is the private mind, where it settles into innermost feelings, thoughts and secrets.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The deepest or most central part of something, regarded as its essential core.

   Explorers finally reached the innermost of the cavern system, untouched for centuries.

   Only in her journal did she confide the innermost of her soul.

   Similarheart, core, depths, center, interior

   Oppositeexterior, surface, outside

   Note

   Here the adjective becomes a noun, and it can even take a plural. In Michael Spence Lowdell Morris's The Spirit of Michael Webfoot (1977), a man turns inward "towards the measures and pains of his wracked innermosts." There the plural names a person's inner depths, not the center of an object. Where the adjective needs a noun to modify, this form stands alone after the or a possessive.

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