Após

Após is a Portuguese preposition meaning “after” or “following.” It is used to indicate temporal sequence or position in relation to another event, moment, or element. It can introduce a noun phrase or a clause, and it frequently appears in formal or written style.

Examples include: “após a reunião” (after the meeting), “após o almoço” (after lunch), and “após terminar o relatório, ele saiu” (after finishing the report, he left). It can also introduce more complex clauses, as in “após o que aconteceu, ficou quieto” (after what happened, he remained quiet). When used with an infinitive, it expresses an action that follows another: “após terminar o estudo, ela trocou de área.”

In terms of register, após tends to be more formal than the common spoken alternative depois de. Brazilian Portuguese speakers often use depois de in speech, while após remains frequent in news, academic writing, legal texts, and European Portuguese.

Related expressions include logo após (soon after) and posteriormente (subsequently). After replacing “após de” or similar constructions, após is generally followed directly by a noun phrase or by an infinitive or a clause.

Etymology and morphology: the word comprises the preposition a + the bound form pós, meaning after; pós itself derives from the Latin post- meaning after. In addition to its standalone use, pós appears as a productive prefix in words like pós-graduação and pós-doutorado, signaling a sequence that occurs after a previous stage.