aftersign

English

Alternative forms

• after-sign, after sign

Etymology

From after- +‎ sign.

Noun

aftersign (plural aftersigns)

1. An indication of a prior event or condition; a lingering sign or mark; that which remains
   • 1863, The Chicago Medical Journal and Examiner - Volume 20:

     The rationale of this is very simple. Rheumatic inflammation is an injury to nutrition which is entirely compensated for the restored function. It passes away and leaves no aftersign, no wound, no scar.

   • 1870, The bane of a life - Volume 3:

     So I parted from you as I did, and made no aftersign, thinking it was better that I should suffer — suffer even to be misjudged and forgotten by you — than that you should be asked to love to your own injury.

   • 1979, Mark O'Connor, The Eating Tree:

     His aftersign is the bridge of beauty glimpsed through shifting cloud.

   • 1986, Jack Yeaman Bryan, Cameras in the quest for meaning:

     Very well, but why stop to photograph the little community of them in Photo 14? The answer is simple: to take in what they in silence were prepared to suggest. What is any shell? The residue, the aftersign, the echo of a spent life.

   • 2011, James Hoggard, The Mayor's Daughter:

     Ghosts of these thoughts came to him but soon faded and, leaving no aftersigns, they caused no bother.

   • 2013, E.C.K. Gonner, Common Land and Enclosure:

     With these facts added, the conclusions that the former was in early open field, and that the small common inclosures are an after sign of early inclosure seem probable.

Anagrams

• afterings