Word.ws English Dictionary

posthumous

Syllables: pos·thum·ous/ˈpɒs.t͡ʃʊ.məs/US/ˈpɑs.t͡ʃə.məs/

posthumous adjective: after the death of someone.

Adjective

posthumous (not comparable)

  1. After the death of someone.
    • The most favorable posthumous history the stay-at-home traitor can hope for is—oblivion.1885, Ulysses S. Grant, “Chapter IV”, in The Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, New York, United States: Charles L. Webster & Co., page 68
  2. Taking place after one's own death.
    • Artists obscure during their life often receive posthumous recognition, too late for them to enjoy.
  3. In reference to a work, published after the author's death.
    • His memoirs were his posthumous revenge on enemies he dared not take on alive.
    • Eight posthumous albums have been released to date – two more than the man managed in his lifetime – often with conspiracy-baiting titles such as Still I Rise and Tupac Resurrection.2012 April 17, Alex Macpherson, “Tupac's hologram reflects another milestone in his mythology”, in The Guardian
  4. In reference to a musical opus, published or initially performed after the composer's death.
  5. (originally) Born after the death of one's father.
    • Posthumous orphans never even knew their fathers.

posthumous meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Kannada

posthumous in Hindi

taking place after one's death
मरणोत्तर marṇottar
in reference to a work, published after the author's death
मरणोपरांत marṇoprānt

posthumous in Tamil

இறந்த பின்னான, மறைவுக்குப்பின், காலமானபின்

posthumous in Urdu

بعداز مرگ, مرنے کے بعد

posthumous in Kannada

ಸತ್ತಮೇಲೆ, ಸಾವುಬಳಿಕ, ಬರ‍್ದುಬಳಿಕದ, ತರುಸಾವಿನ, ಬರ‍್ದುಗೆಯ ಮೇಲಿನ, ಮರಣೋತ್ತರ
More languagesFewer languages
posthumous in Indonesian
anumerta
posthumous in Vietnamese
but see truy tặng

Examples of posthumous in a sentence

  • In Classical mythology, being stellified was about the greatest posthumous honor for a mortal.
  • His brave self-sacrifice won him a posthumous medal, but I think he'd have preferred to receive it in person.
  • Maybe I should do a posthumous book out of journals prehumously.

All 15 example sentences with posthumous

Synonyms of posthumous

Antonyms

Forms of posthumous

alternative formpost-humous
alternative form (archaic)postumous

Origin of posthumous

From Latin posthumus, a variant spelling of postumus, superlative form of posterus (“coming after”), the ⟨h⟩ added by association with humus (“ground, earth”) referring to burial.

Words formed from posthumous

Phrases with posthumous

Questions about posthumous

What does posthumous mean?
Posthumous means after the death of someone.
What is posthumous in Hindi?
Posthumous in Hindi is मरणोत्तर (marṇottar), मरणोपरांत (marṇoprānt). See Posthumous meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is posthumous?
Posthumous is an adjective.
How do you pronounce posthumous?
Posthumous is pronounced /ˈpɒs.t͡ʃʊ.məs/ (UK).

Words near posthumous in the dictionary

  1. posthumanists
  2. posthumanities
  3. posthumanity
  4. posthumans
  5. posthumiliation
  6. posthumous
  7. posthumous execution
  8. posthumous executions
  9. posthumous marriage
  10. posthumous marriages
  11. posthumous name

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: posthumous (page history and authors); posthumous (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); posthumous (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); posthumous (Kannada Wiktionary) (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: “posthumous.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/posthumous. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.