[AFTER- 6; in sense 1 perh. directly from Norse; cf. Icel. eptir-burðr, eftir-burðr (c. 1300), OSw. efterbörd (Ihre), Dan. efterbyrd.]
1. The membrane in which the fœtus is enveloped in the womb; the secundine or placenta. So called because its extrusion follows that of the infant.
1587. Golding, De Mornay, xxviii. 444. Now the world [word] Silo (saith Kimhi) signifieth the Sonne of him, and is deriued of a worde which signifieth a woman’s Afterbirth as they terme it.
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, 87. When these vessels come vnto the secundine or after-birth they disperse through it notable braunches.
1754–64. Smellie, Midwifery, I. 241. The operator will be blamed for leaving the after-birth behind.
1855. Ramsbotham, Obstet. Med. & Surg., 68. It is also called the afterbirth.
2. fig.
1652. Benlowe, Theophila, IV. iii. 52. All New birth heart-deep groans, All after births of penitential mones, Are swallow’d up in living streams of bliss.
1879. McCarthy, Hist. own Times, I. 424. The famine had indeed many a bloody afterbirth; but it gave to the world a new Ireland.
3. Rom. Law. (a·fter-bi:rth) Birth after a father’s death or last will, posthumous birth.
1875. Poste, Gaius, I. 120. The institution or disinherison of a postumus born after the death of a testator … availed to save the will from rupture by afterbirth (agnatio) of an immediate successor.
4. Later birth, late-born children.
1871. Swinburne, Litany of Nations, 2. We thy latter sons, the men thine after-birth … O Earth.
