post factum

[ pohst fak-tuhm ]

adjective

1. after the fact; ex post facto:

   She will announce her decision and then give us a post factum statement of the reasons for it.

Word History and Origins

Origin of post factum¹

1685–95; < Latin: after (the) deed

Example Sentences

Before he went, a word was said about me, and some who had greater regard for the post factum than the pœnitentia were for sending me to the Compter, and leaving the Law Officers to deal with me.

From Project Gutenberg

They spoke, indeed, of three Fathers as guilty, but they named those two who had heard of it in confession, and Father Ouldcorne, not as privy to the Plot beforehand, but as an accomplice post factum.

From Project Gutenberg

Attitudes and behavior that were commonplace in the late 1960s -- about drugs, sex, military service -- are now viewed with post- factum moralism through the prism of two decades of cultural revisionism.

From Time Magazine Archive

Post factum, and after the tardy realization of unforeseen consequences, the history of the real movements which were the inner causes of the Reformation, in great part unknown to the actors themselves, will appear in full light.

From Project Gutenberg

The reaction of the Virginians came in the form of Act I of the Assembly of October 1649 which hailed "the late most excellent and now undoubtedly sainted king," denounced the perpetrators of the deed, and declared that if any person in the colony should defend "the late traiterous proceedings ... under any notion of law and justice" by words or speeches, such person should be adjudged an accessory post factum to the death of the King.

From Project Gutenberg