Word.ws English Dictionary

afterpain

afterpain noun: pain that occurs or remains after an event, such as surgery (especially dental surgery), eating spicy food, or simply an initial, sharper pain.

Noun

afterpain (plural afterpains)

  1. Pain that occurs or remains after an event, such as surgery (especially dental surgery), eating spicy food, or simply an initial, sharper pain.
    • [Causes of] afterpain are rapid injection of the solution or using it too hot, and where the solution is taken from a stock bottle and not boiled; afterpain may also result from sepsis. The enigma of afterpain will undoubedly always by with us[…]1924, Northwest Journal of Dentistry, page 7
    • In spite of all our precautions to avoid afterpain, in spite of the fact that our instruments are properly sterilized and our technique is perfect in every way, nevertheless, pain often follows ex-tractions.1928, Dental Outlook, page 137
  2. (in plural, often) Pain of uterine contractions experienced after childbirth (especially after passage of the placenta).

afterpain meaning in Vietnamese

afterpain in Vietnamese

pain of uterine contractions experienced after childbirth
đau hậu sản

Examples of afterpain in a sentence

  • […] he vomited a great deal of red material. […] The sharp pain had not been continuous, but a dull afterpain persisted from one attack of sharp pain to the next attack of sharp pain.1942, United States. Veterans Administration, The Medical Bulletin, page 113:
  • After dental treatment, afterpain may occur.2017 June 7, Jacques A. Baart, Henk S. Brand, Local Anaesthesia in Dentistry, Springer, →ISBN, page 66:
  • "And how long did the sort of afterpain last for on that [eating spicy nuts]?" "Till the following morning, for sure."2021 June 18, “The Food Challenge That Almost KILLED BeardMeatsFood”, in Happy Hour Podcast:

Forms of afterpain

pluralafterpains

Origin of afterpain

From after- + pain.

Questions about afterpain

What does afterpain mean?
Afterpain means pain that occurs or remains after an event, such as surgery (especially dental surgery), eating spicy food, or simply an initial, sharper pain.
What is afterpain in Vietnamese?
Afterpain in Vietnamese is đau hậu sản. See Afterpain meaning in Vietnamese.
How do you use afterpain in a sentence?
[…] he vomited a great deal of red material. […] The sharp pain had not been continuous, but a dull afterpain persisted from one attack of sharp pain to the next attack of sharp pain.
What part of speech is afterpain?
Afterpain is a noun.
What is the plural of afterpain?
The plural of afterpain is afterpains.

Words near afterpain in the dictionary

  1. afternoonified
  2. afternoonish
  3. afternoons
  4. afternote
  5. afternotes
  6. afterpain
  7. afterpains
  8. afterpart
  9. afterparties
  10. afterparts
  11. afterparty

Source and license

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