- 1來世、來生
Some people believe that when a person dies, life does not just stop. They believe that person goes on in another way — in heaven, as a spirit, or in a new body. That next life is the afterlife. Religions do not all tell the same story about it, and many people are not sure, or do not believe in it at all. You will hear the word in churches and temples, in films about ghosts, and when someone is trying to comfort a family after a death. It is a serious word. You would not use it as a joke about a nap. Though actually, people also stretch it a little in games and stories: a character's afterlife can just mean whatever happens to them after the plot kills them off.
From the word’s history
From after- + life.
由 after「之後」加 life「生命」組成。
組成after- (later, following) + life (being alive).
原始詞典資料5 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
afterlifenoun/ˈɑːftəˌlaɪf/
- 1
A conscious existence after death; a supernatural life that follows one's natural life, in some worldviews.
- Many religious people believe in an afterlife.
- Read in euery Starre, and let the Moone be your Candle to doe it, the prouident disposition of God, the eternitie of your after-life.
- 2
The place believed to be inhabited by people who have died.
- You'll reunite later, somewhere in the afterlife.
- There were human cultures that taught an afterlife of the blessed on mountaintops or in clouds, in caverns or oases, but she could not recall any in which if you were very, very good when you died you went to the beach.
- 3
informalThe part of a person's life that follows a particular stage or event; later life.
- They say that life begins at 40, but right now I'm more interested in the afterlife that begins at 65!
- Those Favorites as it is their first care, to hold up themselves in that height of grace, so alwayes make it their second endeavour to raise Estates, to get Offices and governments, that if they doe remove from that height of favour, yet they may still retaine some happy monument of their former power, and a stay to their after-life.
- 4
The effects of a person's actions, or their reputation, after death.
- The philanthropic endowment that she bequeathed gave her an ongoing afterlife.
- 1662, Margaret Cavendish, The Several Wits, Scene 34, in Playes, London: John Martyn et al., p. 111, […] poor poverty and birth, can be no hindrance to natural wit, for natural wit, in a poor Cottage, may spin an after-life, enter-weaving several colour’d fancies, and threeds of opinions, making fine and curious Tapestries to hang in the Chambers of fame,
- 5
The events or situations that result from a particular event; the later reception, consumption or reworking of something, especially a cultural production such as a film, book, etc.
- The 1970s TV show M*A*S*H had a long afterlife in syndication.
- 1969, Harry Zohn (translator), “The Task of the Translator” in Illuminations by Walter Benjamin, New York: Schocken Books, p. 71, The history of the great works of art tells us about their antecedents, their realization in the age of the artist, their potentially eternal afterlife in succeeding generations.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。