English

Noun

aftertime ‎(plural aftertimes)

1. (dated) The future. A later time.
   • 1865, Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Chapter 12,

     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 Twain (Samuel Clemens), 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!

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

     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.

Usage notes

• Often used as in the aftertime.