after-yearn.
/ˈɑːftəjɪə/, /ˈɑːftəjəː/, /ˈaftəjɪə/, /ˈaftəjəː/, U.S. /ˈæftərˌjɪ(ə)r/ A later or future year. Usually in plural.In quot. 1869: (in plural) future generations, posterity.
ΘΚΠ
the world > time > relative time > the future or time to come > succession or following in time > [noun] > later or subsequent period
after age1560
afterday1591
morrowc1595
after-year1625
back1673
afterward1677
after-hour1726
after1830
the world > time > relative time > the future or time to come > succession or following in time > [noun] > later or subsequent period > a later year
after-year1858
1625 J. Robinson Observ. xxxii. 173 The after years are constreyned to bear the manifold infirmities, & diseases which are owing to inordinat youth.
1668 H. More Two Last Dialogues iv. 158 Truth was a-dawning... But in Henry the eighth's time..it was but as yet a dim Twylight in comparison of after-years.
1792 in Catal. Prints: Polit. & Personal Satires (Brit. Mus.) (1938) VI. 897 In youth you charm our Hearts, and in your after-years you charm away our purses.
1814 W. Wordsworth Excursion viii. 378 Sottish vice..To which in after years he may be rouzed.
1837 J. G. Lockhart Mem. Life Scott I. 341 Had the subject been taken up in after years, we might have had another Marmion.
1858 W. T. Matson Poems 459 Love..sagely musing o'er Fate's riddle-book, The secret coins of many an after-year.
1869 Ld. Tennyson Coming of Arthur 157 In one great annal-book, where after-years Will learn the secret of our Arthur's birth.
1902 J. Gairdner Eng. Church 16th Cent. iv. 45 In spite of all the frightful demoralization of his after years he retained both characters to the very end.
1922 T. Hardy Late Lyrics & Earlier 189 We went to play 'em to church together, And carried 'em there in an after year.
1993 Humanist in Canada Winter 14/2 He bore no malice, but was always courtesy itself when we occasionally met in after-years.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, September 2011; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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n.1625