post mortem
An investigation of a corpse to determine the cause of death.
Adjective
- After death.
- The hospice's standard procedure for post mortem room cleaning looks very thorough.
- Having been inflicted or having occurred after death.
- We shouldn't let these post mortem injuries distract us while looking for the cause of death.
- The post mortem timeline is incomplete.
Origin
From Latin post (“afterwards”) + mortem, from mors (“death”).
Forms
Synonyms
Antonyms
Adverb
- Occurring after death.
- The injuries were found to have been caused post mortem.
Forms
Synonyms
Antonyms
Noun
- An investigation of a corpse to determine the cause of death.
- Nor had the post mortem on Newson's body revealed any illness or other physical condition that might have prevented him from applying the brake, although after four days in the oven-like heat of the wreckage, the body...
- Any investigation after the conclusion of an activity, particularly when said activity produces an unwanted outcome.
- Each user-visible outage or SLA violation should be followed by a postmortem and conclude with implementation of the recommendations in the postmortem report. - 2014 September 3, Thomas A. Limoncelli, Strata R. Chalup,...
- After a serious delay there is often a post mortem on what happened, but this is usually in-house. - 2019 October, Ian Walmsley, “Cleaning up”, in Modern Railways, page 44:
- Grinspoon finishes with some sage advice on the best way to avoid greening out: "Keep the doses low and know yourself. If it happens to you, try to do a postmortem on what happened, like: 'Was there alcohol involved?...
Synonyms: debriefing AAR
- At Cambridge, a second examination for those who were "plucked" or failed in the first.