English

after

/ˈɑːftə/
Behind; later in time; following.

    Etymology graph

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    Origin

    From Middle English after, from Old English æfter, from Proto-West Germanic *aftar, from Proto-Germanic *after, *aftiri, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂epoteros (“further behind, further away”), from *h₂epo (“off, away”).

    Cognate with Scots efter (“after”), North Frisian efter (“after, behind”), West Frisian after, achter, efter (“behind; after”), Low German and Dutch achter (“behind”), German after- (“after-”), Danish and Swedish efter (“after”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk etter (“after”), Faroese and Icelandic eftir (“after”).

    The Irish usage to indicate recent completion of an activity is a calque of the Irish collocation Táim tar éis... (“I have just...”, literally “I am after...”).

    From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

    Lineage

    • inheritedMiddle Englishafter
      • inheritedOld Englishæfter
        • inheritedProto-Germanic*after
          • inheritedProto-Indo-European*h₂epo “further behind, further away”
          • derivedProto-Indo-European*h₂epoteros “further behind, further away”

    Related: Scots efter, North Frisian efter, West Frisian after, nds,nl achter, German after-, da,sv efter, nb,nn etter, fo,is eftir

    Words built on it: after-

    Sources