erewhile

alternative erewhiles

1. archaicnot comparablepoeticSome time ago; beforehand; formerly.

   I am as fair now as I was erewhile.

   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)

   3 more examples

   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,

   1600s, Andrew Marvell A Garden

   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.

   1800s, Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Flâneur

   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."

   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

   Synonyms: erstwhile, erstwhiles