aftercourse

aftercourse

English

Etymology

From after- +‎ course.

Noun

aftercourse (plural aftercourses)

1. The course (sequence of events or actions) that follows something; subsequent course.
   • 1684, Samuel Butler, Hudibras, London: W. Rogers, Canto 3, p. 201,

     And if she should, which Heaven forbid,

     O’rethrow me, as the Fidler did,

     What after-course have I to take,

     ’Gainst losing all I have at Stake?

   • 1761, James Fordyce, The Folly, Infamy, and Misery of Unlawful Pleasure, Boston: Edes and Gill, p. 19,

     […] they beheld that young man in those auspicious days, setting out in the paths of glory, with an ardour that promised the happiest progress in his after course!

   • 1916, George Henry Sherman, Vaccine Therapy in General Practice, Detroit, MI, Chapter 8, p. 154,

     In a few cases I have been fortunate enough to give a vaccine within 24 hours of the initial rigor […] . In these cases there has been an immediate response, and the aftercourse of the disease was profoundly modified.

   • 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses, London: The Egoist Press, p. 134,

     I have often thought since on looking back over that strange time that it was that small act, trivial in itself, that striking of that match, that determined the whole aftercourse of both our lives.

   • 2004, Steven Pressfield, The Virtues of War, New York: Doubleday, Book 4, Chapter 11, p. 110,

     Soldiers are sad after victory. I don’t know why. A melancholy seems to descend in the aftercourse of success.

2. (archaic, regional) The final course of a meal.

   Synonym: dessert

   • 1625, John Stradling, Divine Poemes, London: William Stansby, Class 5, p. 197,

     Yet durst I sweare he neuer dranke Tabacco,

     That smoake at those times was not in request,

     But for this doting age reseru’d in store:

     Now ’tis an after-course at euery feast,

     To some it may doe good, but hurt to more.

   • 1655, Thomas Moffett, Healths Improvement, London: Samuel Thomson, Chapter 28, p. 271,

     […] Menippus set aside the wafercakes with his hand, saying; that a sweet aftercourse makes a stinking breath:

   • 1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: […] G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], OCLC 731622352:

     I made him now sit down by me, and as he had gather’d courage from such extreme intimacy, he gave me an aftercourse of pleasure, in a natural burst of tender gratitude and joy, at the new scenes of bliss I had opened to him

   • 1898, Mary E. Wilkins, “The Stockwells’ Apple-Paring Bee” in The People of Our Neighborhood, Philadelphia: Curtis, p. 144,

     We went home soon after supper. Usually there is an after-course of flip and roasted chestnuts on these occasions, but nothing was said about it that night.

   • 1992, John B. Keane, Durango, Boulder, CO: Roberts Rinehart, Chapter 13, p. 178,

     They heated the last of the bacon and cabbage in their tin pannies. There was also some cold boiled potatoes in the provisions. These served as an aftercourse and a special treat they were […]

3. (obsolete) A subsequent course of study.
   • 1883, Frances Willard, Women and Temperance, Hartford, CT: Park Publishing, Chapter 17, p. 208,

     […] although her education had only the finish of the common schools, yet she had superior teachers, who directed her in an after-course of reading and study, which took her far beyond the ordinary school course.

   • 1892, F. J. Campbell, “The Education of the Blind” in C. E. Shelly (ed.), Transactions of the Seventh International Congress of Hygiene and Demography, London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, Section 4, pp. 231-232,

     […] I am confident that the nation will not be satisfied until we have a complete system, not only of elementary education, but an after course of training which will so prepare all the young blind of average ability that when they arrive at a suitable age for business they will become producers, and not, as hitherto, sink into semi-pauperism.