ex post facto
adjective, adverb
Forms expost facto expostfacto
- adjective Retroactive.
- adjective (law) Formulated or enacted after some event, and then retroactively applied to it.
- adverb (law) By retroactive application of a law formulated or enacted after the deed in question. “What he did was not a crime when he did it, but he was convicted ex post facto.”
Synonyms
Etymology
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.)
Webster’s 1913
- From or by an after act, or thing done afterward; in consequence of a subsequent act; retrospective.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “ex post facto”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details