AFTER THE FACT Definition & Meaning

after the fact

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Idioms and Phrases

After an actual occurrence, particularly after a crime. For example, I know the brakes should have been repaired, but that doesn't help much after the fact . The use of fact for a crime dates from the first half of the 1500s. The word became standard in British law and is still used in this way today. The idiom was first recorded in 1769 in the phrase accessories after the fact , referring to persons who assist a lawbreaker after a crime has been committed. Now it is also used more loosely, as in the example above.

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

Five months after the fact, his swing for the ages was still sinking in.

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Advocates for the couple say it is the first time they’ve seen such a case, in which immigrants have been charged with illegal entry long after the fact.

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Nearly 30 years after the fact, Guy Pearce appears to have processed his interactions with Kevin Spacey on the set of “L.A. Confidential.”

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More commonly, though, freed captives learn of tragic developments long after the fact: Troufanov was told after his release that his father had been killed on Oct.

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“We can look after the fact and see that the consequences of potentially not de-energizing the transmission lines are enormous,” he said.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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after the fact

Idioms and Phrases

Example Sentences