postbellum

• post-bellum

Latin post bellum (literally “after the war”).

• Rhymes: -ɛləm

postbellum (not comparable)

1. Of the period following a war.
   • 2023 September 30, Patrick Wintour, quoting Sauli Niinistö, “‘No turning back’: how the Ukraine war has profoundly changed the EU”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     For most Europeans, a postbellum world had seemed the self-evident future, says Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö.

2. (US) Of the period following the American Civil War, especially used in reference to the South.
   • 2007 November 4, Stephen L. Carter, “Almost a Gentleman”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     Midway through Donald McCaig’s unexpectedly diverting novel, “Rhett Butler’s People,” a black man about to be lynched in the post-bellum South asks Rhett to please shoot him dead before the mob breaks into the jail and does worse.

• post-war

• antebellum
• pre-war