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Glite Dictionary
posthumous birth

posthumous birth

8.2
A child born after one or both parents die
  • noun
  • /ˈpɑstʃəməs bɜrθ/
translation icon : nacimiento póstumo
  • Legal complications sometimes arise in cases of posthumous birth regarding inheritance rights.

Examples

  • The author was a posthumous birth, arriving months after his father's untimely passing.

  • She discovered that her grandfather had been a posthumous birth during a family genealogy project.

  • The couple experienced a posthumous birth after the tragedy.

  • Many people were surprised by the posthumous birth announcement.

  • Legal complications sometimes arise in cases of posthumous birth regarding inheritance rights.

  • She discovered that her grandfather had been a posthumous birth during a family genealogy project.

  • Many people were surprised by the posthumous birth announcement.

Surface Forms

posthumous birth singular
posthumous births plural

Morphology

posthumous + birth

The meaning 'a birth occurring after someone’s death' is directly compositional from 'posthumous' (happening after death) + 'birth' (the event of being born). This straightforward adjective+noun pattern has clear equivalents in many languages, so a learner who knows both constituents should be able to infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

The phrase posthumous birth comes from a simple image: imagine a father who dies and, months later, a baby arrives. Posthumous means 'after death' and birth means the baby's arrival, so it refers to a child born after a parent has died.