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erewhile. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
erewhile, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
erewhile in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
erewhile you have here. The definition of the word
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English
Etymology
From ere + while.
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 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.
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