afterglow
/ˈæftɚɡlˌoʊ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.64 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The mildly euphoric feeling experienced after a pleasurable experience, especially after an orgasm or drug-induced high.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "That the sunset in Egypt is gorgeous, every body knows; but I, for one, was not aware that there is a renewal of beauty, some time after the sun has departed and left all grey. […] everything begins to brighten again in twenty minutes;—the hills are again purple or golden,—the sands orange,—the palms verdant,—the moonlight on the water, a pale green ripple on a lilac surface: and this after-glow continues for ten minutes, when it slowly fades away."
- "Let my thoughts come to you, when I am gone, like the afterglow of sunset at the margin of starry silence."
- "Why did dusk and fir-scent and the afterglow of autumnal sunsets make people say absurd things?"
- "At Stirling, we obtained a wonderful silhouette view of the Wallace Monument, and the dark line of the Ochil Hills, and the castle stood out clearly against the afterglow of the sunset."
- "The sun had just gone down, and its afterglow was backlighting the city, which formed low cliffs around the bucolic void to the idle stockyards."
- "1984, Paul Auster (as Paul Benjamin), Squeeze Play, London: Faber & Faber, 1991, Chapter 19, p. 176, Nothing will matter to you more than that [base]ball. It will hold you so completely that when you at last file out and return to the normal world, it will stay with you like the afterglow of a flashbulb that’s gone off in your eyes."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂ep Proto-Indo-European *-o Proto-Indo-European *h₂epó Proto-Indo-European *-teros Proto-Indo-European *h₂ep(o)teros Proto-Germanic *after Old English æfter Middle English after English after ▲ Old English æfter Old English æfter- Middle English after- English after- English glow English afterglow From after- + glow.