MEANING
1. An existence that some people believe continues or begins after a person dies.
2. The continued presence, influence, or use of something after its original period has ended.
3. A later period of someone’s life, rather than existence after death.
Use it for
discussing beliefs about existence after death; portraying hope or fear about what follows death; distinguishing life after death from biological survivalDistinguishes continued existence after death from reincarnation specifically, and from the bare fact of mortality. Writing functions: Death / Mortality.
Words that belong together
- believe in an afterlife
- the promise of an afterlife
- beliefs about the afterlife
On the page
She envied his certainty about the afterlife but could not share it.
In the novel, the afterlife resembles the town the dead have tried to forget.
The demolished theater had an afterlife in the stories the town kept telling.
Her discarded notebooks acquired an unexpected afterlife in the museum.
In afterlife, she seldom spoke of the city where she had grown up.
Word forms
- Base
- afterlife
Usage notes
Noun, often singular: an afterlife; the afterlife. Plural afterlives is possible for differing conceptions or figurative continuations. Not a proper noun and not normally capitalized. Register: neutral. Commonness: common (dictionary-informed qualitative editorial estimate; not a measured frequency).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
Keep a thought for later. Sign in to save privately.