Word.ws English Dictionary

afterbeat

afterbeat noun: a secondary, weaker half of a musical beat.

Noun

afterbeat (plural afterbeats)

  1. A secondary, weaker half of a musical beat.
    • He does so by giving the first structural tone an afterbeat comparable to that which follows the second structural tone.1989, Leonard B. Meyer, Style and music: theory, history, and ideology
    • The most distinctive rhythmic feature of ska is a strong afterbeat: a strong, crisp chunk on the latter part of each beat.2007, Michael Campbell, James Brody, ROCK AND ROLL: AN INTRODUCTION

Antonyms of afterbeat

Forms of afterbeat

pluralafterbeats

Origin of afterbeat

From after- + beat.

Questions about afterbeat

What does afterbeat mean?
Afterbeat means a secondary, weaker half of a musical beat.
What part of speech is afterbeat?
Afterbeat is a noun.
What is the plural of afterbeat?
The plural of afterbeat is afterbeats.

Words near afterbeat in the dictionary

  1. afterbaths
  2. afterbay
  3. afterbays
  4. afterbear
  5. afterbears
  6. afterbeat
  7. afterbeats
  8. afterbirth
  9. afterbirths
  10. afterbite
  11. afterbites

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: afterbeat (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “afterbeat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/afterbeat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.