Afterstroke

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A stroke which follows another literally
  2. 2
    A counterblow; a return stroke

    "In an after-stroke, Lancelot brought his blade skidding down shallowly across Mordred's armor to nick his neck, the only exposed flesh on his body."

  3. 3
    A payback broadly, figuratively
  4. 4
    A type of grace note that appears after the subject note rather than before

Synonyms

All synonyms
counterblowcounterblow

Example

More examples

"In an after-stroke, Lancelot brought his blade skidding down shallowly across Mordred's armor to nick his neck, the only exposed flesh on his body."

Etymology

From Middle English after-stroke, equivalent to after- + stroke.

Related phrases

grace note

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.