後
Meaning in Englishafterwards, after, since then
Animated kanji stroke order
Related sentences
Word context
What it means
The character 後 means "after" or "behind" and expresses temporal sequence (something occurring later) or spatial position (the area behind something); it functions across grammar as a noun element, an adverbial/time marker, and inside compound words to indicate what comes later or at the back.
Main meanings
- Temporal sequence: an event that follows another in time, used to mark subsequent moments or periods rather than the immediate present.
- Spatial position: the rear side of a person or object, describing location behind something else.
- Remainder/afterward: the part that comes next or what remains following a change or event.
- Compound/technical sense: used in fixed Sino-Japanese compounds to mark later parts of a day, era, or order (often with specialized meanings in formal contexts).
- Narrative connector: signals what happens next in stories or reports, equivalent to "then" or "afterwards" in narration.
How to use it
Used both in everyday speech and in writing: as a temporal marker after time expressions to indicate how long until or after an event, as a noun describing the back/behind of something, and inside compounds where on'yomi (Sino-Japanese) forms appear in more formal or written settings; casual conversation favors native kun readings while formal documents and compound words often use on readings.
Variants and close terms
- 後ろ (うしろ, ushiro) — behind (spatial synonym)
- あと (あと, ato) — afterward/after (temporal synonym)
- のち (のち, nochi) — later/thereafter (literary synonym)
- 前 (まえ, mae) — before (antonym)
- 以後 (いご, igo) — thereafter/after (formal compound)
Composition
The character pairs a movement-related element on the left (a step/motion radical suggesting going or sequence) with a right-side element that functions historically as a phonetic/semantic component representing the idea of "rear" or what comes later; together the parts convey motion toward what follows and the notion of "after"/"behind".
Etymology
後 preserves readings from historical Chinese and native Japanese: the Sino-Japanese on readings derive from Middle Chinese *hòu, producing modern on'yomi written as go and kou (go, kou), while the native kun readings reflect older Japanese words that became associated with the character — ato, ushiro, and nochi (ato, ushiro, nochi) — showing a split between Chinese-derived pronunciations and native vocabulary.
Origin
The concept entered Japanese with kanji adoption from Chinese during the early first millennium; the character appears in classical Chinese texts used by early Japanese scholars and by the Heian period it was fully integrated into written Japanese to mark temporal sequence and spatial relations in literature, official records, and Buddhist writings.
Word class
noun, adverb, suffix (名詞、副詞、接尾辞)