† thereˈwhile, adv. Obs.
Forms: see there and while.
[ME. þer hwile, analysis not certain, but app. repr. an OE. (on) þǽre hw{iacu}le ‘in that time’, and thus, practically = the more usual the while, OE. þá hwile.
þer hwile had evidently come to be apprehended as a whole, and taken as an adv. before 1250, when it appears with advb. genitive -es, -s: see next. Cf. the while (OE.), the whiles c 1300, and the later while, whiles, advbs., both c 1300.]
a. During the time that; whilst; so long as. b. During that time; the while; meanwhile.
| c 1220 Bestiary (in O.E. Misc.) 784 Ne dar he stiren, ne noman deren, Ðer wile he laȝe and luue beren. 1340 Ayenb. 213 Þer huile þet ich me solaci an playe, iche ne þenche none manne kuead. a 1400–50 Alexander 157 Many was þe bald berne at banned þar quile Þat euer he dured þat day. c 1430 Life St. Kath. Cont. (1884) 3 How þe Emperour..ther whyle sent pryue lettres. 1575 Queen Elizabeth in Harington's Nugæ Ant. (ed. Park 1804) I. 126 Their-while I prepair my selffe to welcome deathe. 1617 Hieron Wks. II. 66 What becommeth of the Spirit of God therewhile? Is it lost? |