postern
Situated at the rear; posteriorSituated at the rear; posterior.
Meaning
3 senses(obsolete)Situated at the rear; posterior.
(obsolete)Lower in quality or status; inferior, lesser.
(obsolete)Clandestine, hidden, secret; also, dishonourable, underhand.
Origin
The noun is derived from Middle English postern, posterne (“side door or gate; small entraThe noun is derived from Middle English postern, posterne (“side door or gate; small entranceway; hidden or secret door or passage”), from Late Latin posterna, and from its likely etymon Anglo-Norman posterne and Old French posterne (“hidden exit from a fortified building; back door; small door”) (modern French poterne), a variant of posterle (“back door or passage”) (although this is attested later), possibly also influenced by Latin externus (“external, outward”) and internus (“internal, inward”). Posterle is from Late Latin posterla, posterula (“(small) back door, gate, or way”), from Latin posterus (“coming after, later, next”) (from post (“after; behind”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pós (“afterwards; at, by”)) + -ula (suffix denoting an instrument).
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
more postern, most postern| Comparative | more postern Lesson |
|---|---|
| Superlative | most postern Lesson |
regular
Lessons for this word
2 lessons- A2Comparatives — Because it has a comparative form
- A2Superlatives — Because it has a superlative form
See also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.