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Former   /fˈɔrmər/   Listen
adjective
Former  adj.  
1.
Preceding in order of time; antecedent; previous; prior; earlier; hence, ancient; long past. "For inquire, I pray thee, of the former age." "The latter and former rain."
2.
Near the beginning; preceeding; as, the former part of a discourse or argument.
3.
Earlier, as between two things mentioned together; first mentioned. "A bad author deserves better usage than a bad critic; a man may be the former merely through the misfortune of an ill judgment; but he can not be latter without both that and an ill temper."
Synonyms: Prior; previous; anterior; antecedent; preceding; foregoing.


noun
Former  n.  
1.
One who forms; a maker; a creator.
2.
(Mech.)
(a)
A shape around which an article is to be shaped, molded, woven wrapped, pasted, or otherwise constructed.
(b)
A templet, pattern, or gauge by which an article is shaped.
(c)
A cutting die.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Former" Quotes from Famous Books



... discerning reader will not suppose for a moment that there is any connection between Les Fortunes and Les Miserables; between the chaste style of HAUTGOUT and the extravaganzas of HUGO; whose works, in former days, were not considered fit reading for an Anglo-Saxon public, whose latest and most corrupt fiction owes its success (let us hope) rather to the dearth of new literature than to the vitiated taste of the Southern people. How great the difference between the ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... and treble. A double letter from Cincinnati to New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, or New Orleans, before, paid 50 cents; now it pays 10 cents. The largest portion of postage is reduced to one-fifth part of the former postage. ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt
... in this respect. When he inspected my office, we talked generally over the objectionable system that had so long prevailed here in the mode of discharging and paying off the men. A great deal of this must have been patent and notorious to Mr. Hamilton, as a former resident in Shetland, and having subsequent intercourse with the same; and he may not possibly, in his narrative of this to the Board of Trade, have clearly separated some of the past and the suppressed practices of the agents, and those of more recent date. This would the more readily occur, ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... great difficulty; for the very infirmity even of maternal indulgence, if obstinately and continually abused, must find its ultimate limit; and we have no right to suppose that Charlemagne made his election for the harsher course without a violent self-conflict. His former conduct towards those very people, his infinite forbearance, his long-suffering, his monitory threats, all make it a duty to presume that he suffered the acutest pangs in deciding upon a vindictive punishment; that he adopted this course as being virtually by its consequences the ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... with one of her rapid side glances. The study of character is her grand passion, and her special weakness is a fancy for the singular and incongruous. I have seen her stand in silence, and regard with positive interest one of her former patronesses who was overwhelming her with contumelious violence, seeming entirely unconscious of all else but that the woman was of a species novel to her, and therefore ...
— Esmeralda • Frances Hodgson Burnett


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