postmortem

Meanings

1. 1nouncountable

   A medical examination of a dead body to find out why the person died.

   Grammar: Countable: 'a postmortem', 'two postmortems'. Often used with 'do' or 'perform'.

   Patterns

   • perform a postmortem
   • do a postmortem
   • postmortem on someone

   The hospital performed a postmortem to determine the cause of death.

   The family waited for the postmortem results before making funeral plans.

2. 2nouncountablebusinessinformal

   A meeting or report that examines what happened after an event, especially to learn from mistakes.

   Grammar: Countable: 'hold a postmortem', 'a postmortem on the project'.

   Patterns

   • hold a postmortem
   • postmortem on something
   • postmortem meeting

   After the product launch failed, the team held a postmortem to see what went wrong.

   The postmortem revealed that poor communication caused most of the delays.

Word forms

Common combinations

postmortem examination

The postmortem examination showed no signs of injury.

postmortem report

The postmortem report was released to the press.

hold a postmortem

We should hold a postmortem after the conference to review our planning.

postmortem on something

The manager asked for a postmortem on the failed ad campaign.

Synonyms and how they differ

autopsy

Autopsy is the more common medical word for an examination of a body after death; postmortem is also used in this sense but sounds slightly more formal.

review

Review is a general word for looking back at something; postmortem specifically means a review after an event, often to find faults.

Word family

postmortem adjective

Also used as an adjective, as in 'postmortem examination'.

Commonly confused: postmortem or premortem?

Practice

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