Word.ws English Dictionary

afterhand

afterhand adjective: paid afterwards, rather than in advance.

Adjective

afterhand (not comparable)

  1. (archaic, Scots law) Paid afterwards, rather than in advance.
    • an afterhand rent

Adverb

afterhand (not comparable)

  1. (archaic) Afterwards; subsequently.
    • To be sure, ye ken best, " said the writer; “ hut, after a', now, wad it no be better to lay by this hundred pound in Tam Turnpenny's, in case the young lady should want it afterhand, just for a sair foot?“1824, Walter Scott, St. Ronan's Well: In Four Volumes - Volume 2, page 153
    • Deduction is knowledge beforehand ; induction is knowledge afterhand.1880, The North American Review - Volume 131, page 283

Antonyms of afterhand

Origin of afterhand

From after + hand.

Questions about afterhand

What does afterhand mean?
Afterhand means paid afterwards, rather than in advance.
What part of speech is afterhand?
Afterhand can be an adjective or an adverb.

Words near afterhand in the dictionary

  1. aftergrowths
  2. afterguard
  3. afterguards
  4. afterguardsman
  5. afterguardsmen
  6. afterhand
  7. afterhaps
  8. afterheat
  9. afterheats
  10. afterhind
  11. afterhours

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: afterhand (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: “afterhand.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/afterhand. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.