afterimage.

1. A sensory impression, usually visual, that persists after the stimulus producing it has ended.

2. A lingering memory or mental picture of something no longer immediately present.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• a bright afterimage
• an afterimage of the lamp
• fading afterimages

On the page

The lamp left a pale afterimage when she looked at the dark wall.

The afterimage faded before the room returned to view.

Usage notes

Primary category: sensory / image-rich description. Lexical Type: Word. Forms: Singular afterimage; plural afterimages. Commonness: moderately common (editorial estimate; not a corpus frequency statistic). Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1; numbered fields keep each relevant meaning separate. Research distinction: Direct full extraction: usually visual sensation after external stimulation ceases; separate lasting memory/mental image. Plural afterimages. Medical aliases aftersensation/aftervision observed but not blindly added as spelling variants. Individually checked for a distinct image, texture, sound, taste, smell, visual-perception or artistic function. Definitions/examples are original; sensory strength is not assumed to imply emotion. Writing functions: sensory residue after a stimulus, lingering remembered imagery.