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The word 生後 means something like "after birth". 明鏡国語辞典 defines it this way:

> 生まれてから以後。

But 生前 doesn't mean "before birth". Instead, it means something like "before
death; while [someone] was still alive". From 明鏡 again:

> その人がまだ生きていたとき。死ぬ前。存命中。

In fact, 広辞苑 explicitly says it's the opposite of 死後, not of 生後. I find this a
bit counterintuitive!

Is there a reason why people say 生前 with this meaning instead of something
like 死前? Is there a way to understand it intuitively, or some sort of
etymology that makes it make sense? My dictionaries don't explain why 生 + 前
has the meaning 死ぬ前.

Or is it one of those things I should just memorize, perhaps?
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2014-06-26T22:19:54.073
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etymology
Why does 生前 mean 死ぬ前?
In a Buddhist worldview, birth and death are two sides of the same coin:

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ogMm0.jpg)

Birth and death form the cycle on the left. To escape the cycle you need a
special birth, i.e.「往生」, which lead you to "the land of Perfect Bliss".

On the other hand, in order to be polite to the 「死者｛ししゃ｝」 and his/her
relatives, people tend not to directly use 「死」 to refer to his/her death.
That's when the worldview above comes in handy.

[A reference](http://qanda.rakuten.ne.jp/qa85386.html?rel=innerHtml), in which
a relevant article in Asahi Shimbun was quoted.
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2014-06-27T00:41:30.510
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There seems to be two prevailing explanations about this.

### ① 生 in 生前 is in fact 死, in Buddism

In Japanese there is a word `往生【おうじょう】`, which apparently means "to go alive"
but actually means "to die". This is based on the idea of 輪廻転生【りんねてんせい】 (cycle
of existence) in Buddism, and "往生" can be interpreted as "to go to the next
existence / the second life." So 生前 also is "before he goes to the second
life", hence "before death."

The weakness of this explanation is that I feel "生前" is not a Buddism-origin
word at all. It also fails to explain why "死後" is not "生後" then, anyway.

### ② This 前 means "before _now_ "

生前 has a special nuance which makes it not interchangeable with 死ぬ前 in certain
cases. Note "まだ" and "生きていた" (past tense) in the dictionary definition.

Basically, 生前 is only used after someone's death, by people who know he's
already dead. If you want to say "I want to do X before I die", you have to
say "死ぬ前にXしたい" . If you say "私は生前にXしたい", people will laugh at you saying
"まるでもう死んだみたい."

So 生前 should be interpreted not as "before death" but as "before (now), when
(he was still) alive".

By contrast, 死後 can be used before he dies, and refer to something both in the
past and in the future. (cf. 「死後の世界はどんなものだろう?」) As far as I know, "生後" has no
such requirements, either.
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