Afterwardsness

Alternative forms

• afterwardness

Origin

afterwards + -ness. Coined by Jean Laplanche in his 1998 work Essays on Otherness, as a translation of 's German term Nachträglichkeit, on the model of the French translation après-coup.

Full definition of afterwardsness

Noun

1. (psychoanalysis) The concept that an earlier event in one's life can later acquire a meaning.