Occurring or done before death, used especially in medical and legal contexts to describe events, injuries, or evidence from before someone died.
From Latin 'ante mortem' (literally 'before death'). Became prominent in medical and forensic terminology during the 19th and 20th centuries.
Forensic pathologists use 'antemortem' injuries versus 'postmortem' ones to solve murders—a bruise that happened while you were alive looks completely different under a microscope than one made after death.
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