journey to the afterlife
1
8.9
- noun
- Literature
:
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- She felt a sense of peace as she contemplated her loved one's journey to the afterlife and the beliefs surrounding it.
Examples
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For the journey to the afterlife, she says they used coffins shaped like canoes.
Fiction book (2001) -
It is the small details that are poignant, like special food offerings placed before the corpse, or protective amulets around the neck of mummified sacred rams to help them in their journey to the afterlife.
Academic text (2004) -
In many cultures, there are rituals performed to guide the deceased on their journey to the afterlife.
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The ancient Egyptians believed that careful preparation was essential for a successful journey to the afterlife.
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
journey + to + the + afterlife
The phrase is transparently built from 'journey' (a trip) plus the prepositional phrase 'to the afterlife' (the state after death), so the overall meaning of a path or process leading from life to existence after death is directly derivable from the constituents. This is a straightforward noun + prepositional phrase composition that is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows the component words would readily understand it.
Etymology
Journey to the afterlife comes from old stories and funeral rites that picture the dead travelling to another world, often by boat across a dark river or on a ship sent out to sea. That's why the phrase gives the image of a 'path' or 'trip' after death and is used for the process of moving from life to the world beyond.