aforetime, adv.
(əˈfɔətaɪm)
[f. afore adv. + time (confining afore to the temporal sense).]
Before in time, in former time, formerly, previously.
| 1535 Coverdale Dan. vi. 10 Like as his maner was to do afore tyme. 1611 ibid., As hee did afore time. 1857 S. Winkworth tr. Tauler's Serm. xxv. 391 The light in which he walked aforetime. 1880 Muirhead Gaius i. §63 Neither can I marry her who has aforetime been my mother-in-law. |
¶ Rarely attrib. as adj. and absol. as n.
| 1839 Bailey Festus xix. (1848) 209 Believing not the aforetime unity Of the Divine and human. 1846 Grote Greece (1862) i. i. 37 Fancy, which fills up the blank of the aforetime. |