- 1此後、其後、之後（公文、合約、規章用語）
"Thereafter" means "after that" — after the time or event you just mentioned. "He worked in until 1998, and thereafter in Kaohsiung." "The first month is free; thereafter you pay $300 a month." It looks back at something already said and covers all the time from that point . It is a formal word. You meet it in contracts, price lists, official rules, reports, and history writing; you almost never hear it in a conversation with friends, where people just say "after that", "from then on", or "since then". It is also common in a very useful pattern for prices and rules: state the first case, then use "thereafter" for everything that follows — "The first twenty pages are free, and $2 per page thereafter." Notice it can sit either at the front of the clause or at the very end. And though actually — it is closer to "from then on" than to plain "after". "After that" can point at one single next event; "thereafter" usually suggests the whole stretch of time that followed.
From the word’s history
From Middle English therafter, from Old English þǣræfter 'after that'; there + after.
源自古英文 þǣræfter「在那之後」，由 there 加 after 組成。
組成there + after. "There" here does not mean a place — in these old words it stands in for "that thing I just mentioned". So: after that.
原始詞典資料4 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。
thereafteradv/ˌðɛəɹˈɑːf.tə(ɹ)/
- 1
After that time, from then on; thenceforth.
- Near-synonyms: afterward, afterwards
- He left; thereafter we never met again.
- 2
After that (the thing aforementioned).
- The little dog was off like a shot, and the children went running thereafter.
- This structure is not, as it seems at first sight, a papilla, but forms a ridge crossing the ventral aspect of the worm. Caudad of this prominence the bursa begins. The first ray (Fig. 67), long and thin with a characteristic curve, has its papilla on the external surface of the bursa. It obviously represents the prebursal papilla of those bursate nematodes which possess one. The next ray is equally long but wider. It arises at a slight distance from the first, approaches it and then diverges somewhat again. It is split for half its length only, the more cephalad part being the thinner, and the two papillæ in which it ends lying on the inner surface of the bursa. It is obviously the ventral ray with incomplete sub-divisions. The next three rays are quite obviously the three lateral rays. They lie nearly in apposition with incurved points, the most cephalad ending on the outer surface of the bursa, the other two on its inner surface. The externo-dorsal ray is long and thin, taking off from the main stem of the dorsal ray 0·15 mm. from its base, and ending on the outer surface of the bursa. At a point 0·25 mm. from the beginning of the dorsal ray it divides into its two main branches. These diverge gradually at an acute angle and then approach more abruptly, running thereafter side by side to diverge slightly at their tips. The total length of the dorsal ray is 1·7 mm. Viewed from the side it bends abruptly ventrad soon after giving off a small branch, which it does at a distance of 0·3 mm. from the base of the externo-dorsal ray, and then bends as abruptly into its original caudad direction.
thereafternoun/ˌðɛəɹˈɑːf.tə(ɹ)/
- 1
Synonym of hereafter (“future existence or state”).
- 2
Synonym of hereafter (“existence after death”).
- A mimed sequence might enliven Johnny's visit to the great thereafter; or the battle royal might be painted on a backdrop.
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。