postmortaal

Postmortaal is a Dutch adjective meaning related to or occurring after death. It is used primarily in medical, forensic, and academic contexts to describe events, findings, or processes that take place after a person has died. The term derives from Latin post mortem, via the Dutch prefix post- and the adjectival suffix -aal.

Common Dutch expressions include postmortaal onderzoek, meaning postmortem examination (autopsy), and postmortale veranderingen, referring to postmortem changes such as decomposition and other physiological changes after death. The term can be combined with other nouns to denote timeframes or findings, for example postmortaal interval, the time since death, and postmortale analyse.

In English, the corresponding term is postmortem; in Dutch, postmortaal is the standard adjective, though in some contexts borrowed terms from other languages may appear. Outside medical contexts, the word is less frequent in everyday speech; speakers may instead use na de dood (after death) in general language. Because it is a technical term, postmortaal appears primarily in forensic reports, pathology texts, academic papers, and clinical guidelines addressing death investigations and postmortem care.