Postwar

How to spell postwar

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce postwar

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does postwar mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to or occurring in the period after a war, especially after the Second World War.

Postwar in a sentence

• The postwar housing boom transformed the suburbs around the city.

• Her grandparents married during the postwar recovery years.

Where does postwar come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is a transparent compound built from the Latin prefix post-, meaning 'after' or 'behind in time', joined directly to the native English noun 'war', which itself descends from the Old North French 'werre' and ultimately a Germanic root meaning 'confusion' or 'strife'. The prefix post- had long been productive in English for forming words that signal something happening after an event, as in 'postpone' and 'post-mortem'. 'Postwar' as a fixed term rose to prominence in the twentieth century, particularly in describing the economic and social periods that followed the two World Wars. The closed, unhyphenated spelling became the dominant convention, especially in American usage, although British writers have historically also written 'post-war' with a hyphen. The simplicity of its parts is precisely the trap: writers sometimes hesitate over whether to insert a hyphen or a space, when the standard solid form is simply post plus war.

How the word is built

• post- (after)
• war (armed conflict)