afterpiece

English

Etymology

From after- +‎ piece.

Noun

afterpiece (plural afterpieces)

1. (now chiefly historical) An additional work following the main work; especially, a minor entertainment performed after a play. [from 17th c.]
   • 1642, Henry More, Psychodia Platonica‎^[1], Cambridge: Roger Daniel, Preface:

     To preface much concerning these little after-pieces of Poetry, I hold needlesse, having spoke my mind so fully before.

   • 1787, George Colman, “Notes on the Epistle to the Pisos”, in Prose on Several Occasions‎^[2], volume 3, London: T. Cadel, page 96:

     The idea of farces, or after-pieces, tho’ an inferior branch of the Drama, is, in fact, among the refinements of an improved age.

   • 1793, James Boswell, in Danziger & Brady (eds.), Boswell: The Great Biographer (Journals 1789–1795), Yale 1989, p. 225:

     There was a silly after-piece called Carnarvon Castle, or, The Birth of the Prince of Wales.

   • 1814 July, [Jane Austen], chapter XIII, in Mansfield Park: […], volume I, London: […] T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC, pages 257-258:

     […] let us have a play entire from beginning to end; so as it be a German play, no matter what, with a good tricking, shifting after-piece, and a figure-dance, and a horn-pipe, and a song between the acts.

   • 1910, O. Henry, “Blind Man’s Holiday”, in Whirligigs‎^[3], New York: Doubleday, Page, page 273:

     The policeman, perceiving that the interest of the entire group of spectators was centred upon himself and Lorison […] was fain to prolong the situation—which reflected his own importance—by a little afterpiece of philosophical comment.

2. (nautical) The heel of a rudder. [from 18th c.]

Translations

piece performed after a play

• Finnish: jälkinäytös (fi)