Root

Original Meaning/

Usage Notes

English Derivatives

Vocabulary

post- [from Latin]

(preposition)

after (either in time or in space)

posterior [literally, ‘more after;’ later in time, space, or importance.]

posterity

posthumous [literally, ‘after (one is in) the ground;’ after one’s death.]

post meridiem (PM) [literally, ‘after midday.’]

postmortem [literally, ‘after death;’ forensic dissection and analysis of a dead body to determine the cause of death.]

to postpone

posterity (noun) [literally, ‘afterness;’ future humans; one’s own future descendants.]

to postpone (verb) [literally, ‘to put after;’ to put off to a later time; to delay.]

meta-/met- [from Greek]

(preposition)

after, with

[Note: This comes to mean ‘necessarily preliminary or propaedeutic to.’]

metabolism [literally, ‘throwing after;’ the interweaving of the physiochemical processes within an organism that are necessary to sustain life.]

metamorphosis [literally, ‘after shaping;’ transformation, perhaps caused by magic or by divine intervention.]

metaphor

metaphysical [literally, ‘pertaining to the things after the natural things;’ pertaining to the philosophy that studies the nature of the whole or the whole of nature; pertaining to the science that studies the preconditions for a kind of knowledge, such as the metaphysics of morals.]

metempsychosis [literally, ‘being ensouled after(ward);’ the transmigration of souls at death from one being into another.]

method

metaphor (noun) [literally, ‘borne after or with;’ a figure of speech in which one thing is identified with another.]

method (noun) [literally, ‘way after;’ a systematic procedure for accomplishing a goal.]