aftertime

English

Alternative forms

• after-time

Etymology

From after- +‎ time.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈɑːf.tə.taɪm/

Noun

aftertime (plural aftertimes)

1. A later time; the future.
   • 1865, Lewis Carroll, chapter 12, in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland‎:

     Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood […]

   • 1878, Mark (Samuel Clemens) Twain, A Tramp Abroad‎:

     Toward morning, while the old man sat exhausted and asleep in his chair where he had been sitting before his books as one who watches by his beloved dead and prints the features on his memory for a solace in the aftertime of empty desolation, his daughter sprang into the room and gently woke him, saying-- "My presentiment was true!

   • 1902, William James, The Varities of Religious Experience, Folio Society, published 2008, page 322:

     mystical states seem [...] full of significance and importance, all inarticulate though they remain; and as a rule they carry with them a curious sense of authority for after-time.

   • 1924, Herman Melville, chapter 18, in Billy Budd‎, London: Constable & Co.:

     For it was close on the heel of the suppressed insurrections, an aftertime very critical to naval authority, demanding from every English sea-commander two qualities not readily interfusable—prudence and rigour.

2. (music) The process in which a harmony singer or background singer repeats a line or a series of words in a song separately after the lead singer rather than singing it in unison with the lead singer; prominent in country music and Southern gospel.

Usage notes

• Often used as in the aftertime.

Synonyms

• hereafter; see also Thesaurus:the future

Antonyms

• foretime; see also Thesaurus:the past

Translations