Word.ws English Dictionary

aftertale

aftertale noun: evil talk; slander; defamation.

Noun

aftertale (plural aftertales)

  1. Evil talk; slander; defamation.
    • Our cad's bit of strife (knee Bareniece Maxwelton) with a quick ear for spittoons (as the aftertale hath it) […]1999, James Joyce, Finnegans Wake
  2. A postscript added to the end of a story.
  3. A postscript added where a story should end.

Antonyms of aftertale

Forms of aftertale

pluralaftertales

Origin of aftertale

From Middle English aftertale, equivalent to after- + tale. Cognate with Middle Dutch achtertale, achtertaele.

Questions about aftertale

What does aftertale mean?
Aftertale means evil talk; slander; defamation.
What part of speech is aftertale?
Aftertale is a noun.
What is the plural of aftertale?
The plural of aftertale is aftertales.

Words near aftertale in the dictionary

  1. aftersummer
  2. aftersun
  3. afterswarm
  4. afterswarming
  5. afterswarms
  6. aftertale
  7. aftertales
  8. aftertaste
  9. aftertastes
  10. aftertax
  11. aftertest

Source and license

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