aftersense

aftersense

English

Etymology

after- +‎ sense; apparently (re)coined by Henry James in the late 19th century.

Noun

aftersense

1. A perception that follows an experience; a subsequent sense.
   • 1678, Bartholomew Ashwood, The Heavenly Trade, London: Samuel Lee, p. 309,

     Peter got good from his fall, by keeping an after-sense of the evil of it on his heart.

   • 1878, Henry James, “An International Episode” in Lady Barbarina, The Siege of London, An International Episode and Other Tales, New York: Scribner, 1908, p. 387,

     She privately ached—almost as under a dishonour—with the aftersense of having been inspected in that particular way.

   • 1975, Robert Alter, Partial Magic: The Novel as a Self-Conscious Genre, Chapter 1, p. 2,

     […] the printed text, made easily available in thousands upon thousands of copies, which at best preserves from its literary antecedents a flickering, intermittent aftersense that what it says ought to be true because it is written in a book.

   • 1985, John W. McGhee, Introductory Statistics, St. Paul: West Publishing Company, Section 4.4, p. 134,

     The spiral is set in motion and observed by the patient. When stopped, the normal response is a continued aftersense of motion.

   • 2007, Toby Litt, Hospital, Penguin, 2008, p. 318,

     Sarah, who a moment before had been spattered in the face with bone fragments and blood, felt herself grow clean again—though an aftersense of having been touched by such matter remained.