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afterwards

adverb

Simple meaning

At a later or succeeding time.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

afterwerdz

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈæftɚwɚdz

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adverb

  1. temporal location

    At a later or succeeding time; after that

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: (temporal location) At a later or succeeding time; after that

Used this way, afterwards is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

soon afterwardsshortly afterwardsimmediately afterwardsever afterwardsafterwards madeafterwards found

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • afterwardadverbBase word

    Happening at a time subsequent to a reference time.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: at a later or succeeding time

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.