Meanings
- uncountableLight that follows something, especially the dim light in the sky after the sun has fully set.
1949, Dorothy L. Sayers (translator), The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri Cantica 1: Hell, Penguin, Canto 16, p. 170, So may thy soul these many years abide / Housed in thy body, and the after-light / Of fame shine long behind thee,
3 more examples
The sun had set some time since, but the landscape was still clear in the mellow afterlight.
1908, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 2, in Anne of Green Gables, Boston: L.C. Page, page 30For years they saw each other in full daylight only on Sundays. The rest of the time they spoke or touched or ate in darkness. Predawn darkness and the afterlight of sunset.
1987, Toni Morrison, Beloved, New York: Knopf, page 25the simplifying afterlight of metaphor
2000, Carol Shields, “Ilk”, in Dressing Up for the Carnival, London: Fourth Estate, page 57
Synonyms & antonyms
nounLight that follows something, especially the dim light in the sky after the sun has fully set.
Origin
Cite this entry
afterlight. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/afterlight
“afterlight.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/afterlight. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “afterlight,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/afterlight.
Source: afterlight on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.