English

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Etymology

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From after- +‎ wave.

Noun

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afterwave (plural afterwaves)

  1. A wave (in literal and figurative senses) that follows something.
    • 1801, Robert Charles Dallas (translator), The Natural History of Volcanoes by the Abbé Ordinaire, London: T. Cadell, Jun. and W. Davies, Chapter 22, p. 158,[1]
      From the fierce burning stream, the afterwaves keep those over which they flow, in a state of fusion:
    • 1866 April 28, Saturday Review[2], volume 21, number 548, page 490:
      Simultaneously with the lull in Germany we are beginning to hear of all these preparations [in Italy], which the lull renders comparatively unimportant. The news of them comes as a sort of afterwave of the German crisis.
    • 1918, James Sully, chapter 5, in My Life and Friends: A Psychologist’s Memories[3], London: T. Fisher Unwin, page 120:
      [I] hurried on [] to Verona, and my first view of Italy’s monumental record of her past. I caught a sort of afterwave of the patriot’s angry shudder as I looked upon the forts which had recently made one of the chief overawing strongholds of the Austrian domination.
    • 1968, Ayi Kwei Armah, chapter 6, in The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born[4], Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 84:
      Sounds, the mild thunder of the night waves hitting calmer water and the sigh of retreating afterwaves, now joined together with what we saw.
    • 2003, Norman Rush, chapter 37, in Mortals[5], New York: Knopf, pages 705–706:
      He moved in her. She was in one of the afterwaves of coming when he began.