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Which U.S. document mentions posterity in its preamble?

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posterity

American  

[po-ster-i-tee] / pɒˈstɛr ɪ ti /

noun

posterities plural

1. succeeding or future generations collectively.

   Judgment of this age must be left to posterity.

2. all descendants of one person.

   His fortune was gradually dissipated by his posterity.

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posterity British  

/ pɒˈstɛrɪtɪ /

noun

1. future or succeeding generations

2. all of one's descendants

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• posterities
  plural

Etymology

Origin of posterity

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English posterite, from Old French postérité, from Latin posteritāt-, stem of posteritās, noun derivative of posterus “coming after”; see posterior, -ity

Explanation

Posterity is a noun meaning "future generations." These people of the future could be your children and great-great grandchildren, or any people who are born after you. If you save something "for posterity," you're hoping that years later people will appreciate it, like a time capsule you bury in the yard. The word comes from the Latin word for "post, after." It's also related to the word posterior, which means "behind, to come after in time." In legal terms, posterity refers to the offspring of a person and it often has to do with inheriting property and who is entitled to do so.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

posterity posterities

Known to posterity as “Stobaeus,” he lived in a time of turbulence, when “the Roman Empire was collapsing in the West but holding up better in the Greek-speaking East.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 8, 2026

Like Queen Victoria, Zadie Smith and many others, she had concluded that posterity would be better served without her full diary than with it.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 6, 2026

Videos on social media and YouTube show people tagging empty storefronts, skateboarding or riding bicycles indoors and urban explorers touring the abandoned spaces for posterity or to look for signs of paranormal activity.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 10, 2026

But praise was poured upon the humble pint's place in the nation's history, cultural life and language, and the government moved to ensure the measurement was preserved for posterity.

From BBC ● Dec. 29, 2025

In effect, if Adams had a different story to tell, if he saw a different pattern in the historical swirl they had both lived through, he should write out his account and let posterity judge.

From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis

Remember, it is not before my Lord Buckhurst and Master Beale that we sit, but before all posterities for evermore, who will hear of Mary Stewart and her wrongs.

From Unknown to History: a story of the captivity of Mary of Scotland by Yonge, Charlotte Mary

BUT Love has more to do with his own possible and probable posterities, than with the once living but now impossible ancestries in the past.

From Pierre; or The Ambiguities by Melville, Herman

Friar Bacon reading one day of the many conquests of England, bethought himself how he might keep it hereafter from the like conquests, and to make himself famous hereafter to all posterities.

From Cabinet Portrait Gallery of British Worthies Volume I by Anonymous

During those primeval centuries, there lived at the same time nine patriarchs, together with their posterities, and all of them in harmony concerning the faith in the blessed seed!

From Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II Luther on Sin and the Flood by Lenker, John Nicholas

If you and those in power with you should be found walking in the King’s steps, can you secure yourselves or posterities from an overturn?

From The Digger Movement in the Days of the Commonwealth As Revealed in the Writings of Gerrard Winstanley, the Digger, Mystic and Rationalist, Communist and Social Reformer by Berens, Lewis Henry