The one before the prior one?
Say I'm comparing different models of a particular car. There are four models in total, each released a year apart. The current model would be the newest one, and the "prior" model would be the one before the newest one.
Is there an equivalent adjective that describes the model before the prior one? I could call it the "second-generation" model, but then that's no longer relative to whatever generation the current model is (unlike "prior," which always means "the one before the current one").
In normal understandable speech it goes like this:
- this year's model
- last year's model
- the model from the year before last
or
- this one
- the prior one
- the one before the prior one.
More formally the adjectives are:
- current or ultimate
- penultimate
- antepenultimate
but these latter adjectives are usually only used in very particular erudite circumstances, like where to put the stress on syllables in a word.
You can use current, penultimate, and antepenultimate, but I suspect most people won't know what those mean. More productive would be to simply say "this year's", "last year's", "2 years ago", "3 years ago", etc. Or, as Cameron says, call them by year: 2012, 2011, 2010, etc.