does subsequent mean immediately after [closed]
Merriam-Webster gives a more detailed definition of
subsequent [adjective]: following in time, order, or place
Thus a subsequent tsunami may occur many years after the precursor mentioned, but does it have to be the next one in sequence? It's necessary to look at actual usages.
- A subsequent eruption a week later was accompanied by rainfall [Volcano.gov... Mount St Helens]
- 'The mistakes were corrected in a subsequent edition of the book.' [Cambridge Dictionary]
This may of course be 'the edition immediately after this one' but is unlikely to be in existence immediately following chronologically.
- While it's impossible to know for sure, the team thinks the most probable explanation is Japan's Mount Asama, which produced a giant, months-long eruption in the year 1108 – significantly larger than a subsequent eruption in 1783 that killed over 1,400 people. [ScienceAlert]
While these illustrate clearly that subsequent need not mean happening immediately after, chronologically, the use of the indefinite article, especially in the ScienceAlert article, further strongly hints at the broader 'following' rather than 'following next in time and/or sequence' sense. And in fact Wikipedia lists about 30 intervening eruptions between that of 1108 and that of 1783. None of the dictionaries I've checked insist on any form of immediacy (though I'd say 'later' is usually used where the events are very far apart in time and sequentiality).
- The replacement of any residential structures which physically and lawfully existed at any time subsequent to January 1, 1992 for which the landowner held a ...
from a legal document found online must obviously mean '... at any time later than January 1, 1992 ...'.