adjective · rare

ex post facto

RetroactiveRetroactive.

» You're allowed to make up rules, but you can't apply them ex post facto.

Meaning

2 senses

(not comparable)Retroactive.
Retroactive.
(not comparable)Formulated or enacted after some event, and then retroactively applied to it.

More definitions

affecting things past

Examples

2 sentences

You're allowed to make up rules, but you can't apply them ex post facto.
CC BY 2.0 FR · Tatoeba · rul · B2Open on Tatoeba Report a problem
U.S. soldiers whose separation from service is delayed due to a stop loss stop movement policy, are compensated ex post facto.
CC BY 2.0 FR · Tatoeba · LB · B2Open on Tatoeba Report a problem

Origin

From Latin ex (“from”) + post (“after”) + factō, ablative of factum (“deed”). In Latin, ex

From Latin ex (“from”) + post (“after”) + factō, ablative of factum (“deed”). In Latin, ex takes the ablative case, while post takes the accusative case. (See Wikipedia for a discussion of the grammatical form and usage of this phrase.)

Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Synonyms

2 synonyms

Close in meaning

affecting things past:retroactive retro

Word family

1 related words

Relatedex post