posthumously

adverb

post·​hu·​mous·​ly ˈpäs-chə-məs-lē 

also -tə-, 

-tyə-, 

-thə-;

päst-ˈhyü-məs-, 

ˈpōst-, 

-ˈyü-

: after the death of the person in question

a book published posthumously

a medal awarded posthumously

Plath's magnificent Ariel, written mostly during the final months of her life and assembled posthumously by Hughes, takes the notion of confessional poetry to verbal and imaginative extremes.

—Christopher Benfey

Flannery O'Connor united both traditions and is duly, albeit posthumously, celebrated.

—Walker Percy

Examples of posthumously in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Prodigious crime novelist Westlake wrote Memory in 1963—the same year as The Outfit and The Score, two of the best Parker books—but it was rejected everywhere and published posthumously. —Literary Hub, 13 May 2026

After also being made permanently ineligible to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991, Rose was posthumously reinstated and became eligible for the Hall just months after his death. —Mark Harris Outkick, FOXNews.com, 10 May 2026

Angela Onduto, 47, pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter in the 2009 drowning death of her own daughter, posthumously named Matea Esperanza by the police agency that investigated her. —Nate Gartrell, Mercury News, 9 May 2026

The other collapsed and died in South Africa and tests on that person were performed posthumously. —ABC News, 6 May 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1754, in the meaning defined above