erewhile
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Etymology tree
Adverb
erewhile (not comparable)
- (archaic or poetic) Some time ago; beforehand; formerly.
- c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
- I am as fair now as I was erewhile.
- 1600s, Andrew Marvell A Garden:
- She runs you through, nor asks the word.
- O thou, that dear and happy Isle,
- The garden of the world erewhile,
- Thou Paradise of the four seas
- Which Heaven planted us to please,
- 1800s, Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Flâneur:
- The dame sans merci's broken strain,
- Whom I erewhile, perchance, have known,
- When Orleans filled the Bourbon throne,
- A siren singing by the Seine.
- 1885–1888, Richard F[rancis] Burton, transl. and editor, Supplemental Nights to the Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night […], Shammar edition, volume (please specify the volume), [London]: […] Burton Club […], →OCLC:
- Quoth he to me, "Thou shalt fare with me to Cairo where dwelleth a friend of mine and to him will I give thee, for erewhile I promised him that on this voyage I would secure for him a fair woman for handmaid."