Afterlife

How to spell afterlife

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce afterlife

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does afterlife mean?

1. nounExistence believed to continue after death.

Afterlife in a sentence

• Many religions teach that the soul continues in the afterlife.

• The documentary explored different cultural beliefs about the afterlife.

Where does afterlife come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent compound formed from two very old native English words, 'after' and 'life'. The element 'after' descends from Old English 'æfter', meaning 'following in time or place', while 'life' comes from Old English 'lif', the word for existence or a living being. The combined noun 'afterlife' is relatively modern: it appears in English around the early 1600s, at first sometimes meaning simply a later part of one's earthly life, before settling on its dominant sense of existence after death. Because both halves are ordinary, familiar words joined without any linking letter, the spelling is straightforward; the only thing to remember is that it is written as one solid word, not as two ('after life') or hyphenated.

How the word is built

• after (following, later)
• life (the noun)