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Erstwhile   /ˈərstwˌaɪl/   Listen
Erstwhile

adverb
1.
At a previous time.  Synonyms: at one time, erst, formerly, once.  "Her erstwhile writing" , "She was a dancer once"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Erstwhile" Quotes from Famous Books



... Bill's fierce eyes were on Sandy, and the erstwhile married man felt their contempt boring into his very soul. He was held silent, in spite of his anger against the broad-shouldered Toby, and was possessed of a feeling that somehow his second effort had been no more successful than his first. And forthwith the impression received confirmation ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum

... of the First National Bank of Winnebago, whose visits had once brought such terror to Molly Brandeis. Augustus G. Gerretson was there, and three of his department heads. Emil Bauer sat just behind him. In a corner was Sadie, the erstwhile coquette, very subdued now, and months behind the fashions in everything but baby clothes. Hen Cody, who had done all of Molly Brandeis's draying, sat, in unaccustomed black, next to Mayor A. J. Dawes. Temple Emmanu-el was there, almost a unit. The officers ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... power—a horrible kind of strength and vitality in that figure—a crushing impression of his potency to make one miserable, conveyed in the strong, rasping voice. Quite a different Sir Peter from my erstwhile wooer. He was a masculine, strong, planning creature, whose force of will was able to crush that of my sister as easily as her forefinger might crush a troublesome midge. He was not blind or driveling; he could reason, plot, argue, ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill

... while John rode beside Jeb. The two latter riders had much to say to each other, for John had been Jeb's particular charge when the hired man first went to work at Pebbly Pit. Now John was a head taller than his erstwhile guardian, even if he was ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... soon aboard the battered pirate, so recently their home. Three or four dead men lay on the canted deck, for no effort had been made as yet to clean the ship. Bob and Jeremy had no stomach for looking at the corpses of their erstwhile companions and turned rather to explore the cabin and fo'c's'le, leaving Job to hunt for the body ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... The erstwhile secretary submitted without demur to an examination of his clothing, and without any change of expression that I could perceive. The pale eyes followed my movements with a blank, incurious stare (though Stodger maintains that they did not ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk

... of Wiltshire is noted as the birthplace of Addison, who was the son of a clergyman, afterward the Dean of Lichfield. An erstwhile resident of Lichfield, Samuel Johnson by name, once said of Joseph Addison, "Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... after all this, the Begum herself had need of Mrs. Mackie: for it was prudent to conceal some things, if she could, from certain Brahmins, who were to her what John Knox had erstwhile been to Mary: and Jeanie Mackie, burdened with her little Amy Stuart, aided in the birth of a female Tracy-Begum. So, the nurse tended both babes; and more than once had marvelled at their general resemblance; Amy's mother looked out again from those dark eyes; there was not a shade between ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... pastured,* were but bare plains, in which the cattle that were left had all run wild or perished from neglect. Wild beasts roamed round the outskirts of the half-deserted towns. A dense low scrub of yatais and of palmettos invaded all the pasture-lands, and in the erstwhile cultivated fields rank weeds sprang up, and choked the crops which in the Jesuits' times had made the mission territories the most productive of the American possessions of the Spanish crown. The churches were unserved, and in the evening ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... the matter was preposterously left, the aspirants for this social honour patiently bending their knees to the erstwhile despised Cousin Egbert, and the latter being visibly puffed up. By rather awkward stages they came again to a discussion of ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... time,' said she, 'calls rather for healing than for lamentation.' Then, with her eyes bent full upon me, 'Art thou that man,' she cries, 'who, erstwhile fed with the milk and reared upon the nourishment which is mine to give, had grown up to the full vigour of a manly spirit? And yet I had bestowed such armour on thee as would have proved an invincible defence, ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius

... almost immediately. It was pitiful to see the erstwhile Whittaker majority melt away. Alonzo Snow was triumphantly elected. But a handful ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln

... to the bobby, who, favorably impressed by the silk hat which Kirkwood, by diligent application of his sleeve during the cross-town ride, had managed to restore to a state somewhat approximating its erstwhile luster, smiled at the cabby a cold, hard smile. Whereupon the latter, smirking in unabashed triumph, spat on the pavement at Kirkwood's feet, gathered up the reins, ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... you back now to the Water Festival and the events in the Great City which followed it. Slaans in murderous frenzy were plunging through the throng of erstwhile revelers. Maida could not quell them. The revolt which she had started against Tarrano seemed now a self-created ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings

... period of nearly two years effectually to repress any sexual desire in the husband, and this period is perhaps the chastest of his life. Desire seemed to be the one thing absent. The revulsion of feeling in his wife was remarkable. The erstwhile amorous fiancee, who could hardly wait until marriage to test her lover, became now the wife and mother who hardly wished to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... all the evidences of rapturous happiness in their union. It had only been revealed during this present visit to the household by the aunt that, somehow, things were not as they should be between these two erstwhile so fond.... And now, at last, the truth was revealed in all its revolting nudity. Mrs. Delancy recalled, with new understanding of its fatal significance, the aloof manner recently worn by the young husband in his home. So, this was the ghastly explanation ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan

... old and all her beauty gone, Lais, the erstwhile courted pleasure queen, Walked homeless through Corinth. One mocked her mien - One tossed her coins; she took them and passed on. Down by the harbour sloped a terraced lawn, Where fountains played; she paused to view the scene. ...
— Poems of Progress • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... who declined to hit back, but as a butt his success was assured. The night when a gawky lad of eighteen drank up his beer, and then invited him to step outside if he didn't like it, dwelt long in his memory. And Elk Street thrilled one evening at the sight of their erstwhile champion flying up the road hotly pursued by a foeman half his size. His explanation to his indignant wife that, having turned the other cheek the night before, he was in no mood for further punishment, was ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs

... Roosevelt's levelheaded friends. It became a clean-cut conflict between progress and reaction, between the interests of the people, both as rulers and as governed, and the special interests, political and business. But it also became a bitter conflict of personalities between the erstwhile friends. The breach between the two men was afterwards healed, but it was several years after the reek of the battle had drifted away before even formal relations were restored ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland

... thing in perplexity, for the fate of his erstwhile assistant had long since passed from his mind. Then he saw writing on the margin of the card, and ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace

... as the result of an incautious move, and, after several woebegone contortions of his shoulders and hands, declined further contest. A sleek-headed piccolo rushed forward to remove the board, and the erstwhile combatants resumed the courteous dignity that they discarded in their ...
— When William Came • Saki

... be reduced to that painful necessity. If I'm not mistook, this young gentleman was paid a hundred dollars this afternoon for his bravery in throwing a royal Bengal tiger over his shoulder and bringing him back to the circus, from which erstwhile the animal strayed." ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis

... insignificant, beside the goal of Thorwald, Jr. The blond Colossus, whom an hour ago all Bannister reviled and condemned for not playing the game, who was a campus outcast, was now a hero; thanks to the erstwhile heedless Hicks, whose intense earnestness in itself was a revelation to the amazed collegians, Thor stood before them in a different light, and the impulsive, whole-souled, generous youths were now anxious ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice

... these lonely trees, nor had these flowers felt their life's great and only thrill in the touch of a baby's dimpled hand. But that golden door at last swung gently open. That hour of ecstasy and anguish brought us life's crown and joy, and the hills of time, erstwhile green and beautiful, were now radiant with a light ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... of Kate Hall,' by Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, the question of imminent concern is the marriage of super-dainty, peppery-tempered Lady Katherine Clare, whose wealthy godmother, erstwhile deceased, has left her a vast fortune, on condition that she shall be wedded within six calendar months from ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer

... overtake any nation or community, regardless of race, if it were completely cut off from all outside help and influence. The civilised Romans who conquered Britain in the early Christian era, no doubt, looked upon the primitive Britons as a feeble folk when compared with themselves, but the erstwhile slaves have since demonstrated their capacity for developing a civilisation utterly beyond the imagination of their foreign masters. Rome was not built in a day. The rearing of Western civilisation required many centuries, and it can hardly ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen

... formed the dominant nationality. The remnants of the Empire showed an uncommonly tough vitality. It is true that the Teutonic states succeeded everywhere in establishing themselves; but only in England and in the erstwhile Roman Germany did the Roman nationality succumb to the Teutonic. In the other countries it not only maintained itself, but was able to assimilate the ruling German race; the Lombards, West Goths, Swabians, and even the Franks in the greater part of Gaul became Romanized. Consequently ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... and Mr. Conroyal, who was in the lead, stopped suddenly and stared in astonishment at the woe-begone faces of the erstwhile happy couple. ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil

... gentleman" replied for an hour in an eloquent and convincing defense of the Christian religion, in which he answered in order every objection the young men had uttered. So impressive was the simplicity and loftiness of his discourse that the erstwhile critics were completely silenced. ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin

... feet, after which two of them stepped forward and, with every appearance of the deepest reverence, proceeded to untwine the garlands of flowers and release the pair from their bonds. Finally, the erstwhile prisoners were taken in charge by two of the priests, who first conducted them to an apartment wherein were all the requisites for a bath, together with a complete change of clothing, and afterward to another room, very luxuriously furnished, in which they found not only a choice though evidently ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... Erstwhile Beloved, you were so young and fragile I held you gently, as one holds a flower: But now, God knows, what use to still be tender To one whose life is ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.

... to step forward to take the oath, sign the submission, and receive his pardon was the Hon. Joseph Bagby, erstwhile member of the Assembly of New Jersey, but now loudly declaring his loyalty to the crown, and his joy that "things were to be put in order again." The second signer was the publican; the third was Esquire Hennion; ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... readiness to swallow that extraordinary yarn. The more he considered, the more he marvelled. It surpassed belief—his asininity did; at least he wouldn't have believed he could be so easily fooled. He felt like kicking himself—and longed unutterably for a chance to kick his erstwhile guest. ...
— The Bandbox • Louis Joseph Vance

... at the farther end of the cabin table. The table was littered with the debris of a meal, which Charley Bo Yip was phlegmatically and deftly clearing away, and Martin stared across the board's disarray at Wild Bob Carew's disdainful face. The erstwhile commander of the schooner Dawn, his comrades' unscrupulous enemy, his own rival, was the same aloof, superior rogue he remembered from the ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... hither. They are well-educated people, speaking English and French, and well-read and accomplished. But how little are those modern accomplishments when it comes to the elemental realities of life. A beautiful young countess is employed in a bakery to sell bread, and is lucky. An erstwhile lion and ex-general has a job in a laundry. Pride intervenes only to stop them begging. How few are the beggars! But you see the nicest of girls with pinched white faces trying to sell loukoum. Even hard Scotsmen passing by are fain to give ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham

... high overhead, holding them in the dissolving area of his beam. Too high to ray them but also too high for their futile bullets. The Mercutians no longer underrated the fighting abilities of their erstwhile slaves. ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner

... over, and to earth go back— To earth and the eternal sun—the atoms Erstwhile combined in me for pain and joy. And of the mighty Talbot, whose renown But now filled all the world, nothing remains Except a handful of light dust. So ends The life of man—and all we bear away, As booty from the battle of existence, Is comprehension of its nothingness And sovereign ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... him, and wondered whether it would ever happen that the reactionary spirit induced by the world's sneers and his own physical wishes would make Phillotson more orthodoxly cruel to her than he had erstwhile been informally and ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy

... January of that year, at the sixth session of the National Grange, the temporary organization of government clerks was replaced by a permanent corporation, officered by farmers. Kelley was reelected Secretary; Dudley W. Adams of Iowa was made Master; and William Saunders, erstwhile Master of the National Grange, D. Wyatt Aiken of South Carolina, and E. R. Shankland of Iowa were elected to the executive committee. The substitution of alert and eager workers, already experienced in organizing Granges, for the dead wood of the ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck

... his wood, and Alice could not help but notice the sorry appearance of the erstwhile faultlessly dressed gentleman who stood collarless and unshaven, the once delicately lined silk shirt filthy with trail dust, and the tailored suit wrinkled and misshapen as the clothing of a tramp. She noted, too, that his movements were awkward and slow with the pain ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx

... the erstwhile procession were distributed about the embankment in various conditions, but, as I have said, nobody seemed to have parted company with ...
— Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures • Edgar Franklin

... Atonement more effectually in all his life—by getting together of man and man, and man and God, through the spirit of self-sacrifice. He stands in the true apostolic succession, the succession of men like Saul of Tarsus, the erstwhile persecutor, who, under the inspiration of the love of Jesus, lived to say, "Who is weak and I am not weak? Who is ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell

... had little desire now for what two hours since had seemed a prospect of bewitching promise. The music rose and fell in magic measure without its erstwhile power to stir her pulses. There was not one in all that company below for whom she cared or who cared for her, none but whose interest in her presence or absence was as slight as hers; and her mood shrank from the thought of such casual and conventional gallantries as the affair would inevitably ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance

... work continued, mornings and afternoons, evenings and far into the nights. Serena was in it, Gertrude was in it, and Cousin Percy and Mr. Holway were in it because she was. Monty's calls were of frequent occurrence. Mr. Hungerford and his erstwhile chum did not speak to each other at all now. But at receptions and teas and dances and musicals and committee meetings one or the other was on hand at Miss Dott's elbow. And Gertrude was very gracious to them both; not more ...
— Cap'n Dan's Daughter • Joseph C. Lincoln

... liar, a common thief, a paltry murderer or vulgar parricide—but a COWARD, a blubberer, a baby. Even Delorme, more in sorrow than in anger, shunned his erstwhile bosom-pal, and ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren

... Norwegian violinist it was a Utopian dream with a speedy and rude awakening. After he had retired the Lagrange troupe came from downtown and completed the season with the help of the stockholders, and Maretzek, the erstwhile impresario and lessee, became the conductor. For four years, 1855, 1856, 1857, and 1858, the Academy saw Maretzek, Strakosch, and Ullmann alternately installed as impresarios, and then for a year there was no opera at the house, the three men at the head ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... finger at a wide crack in the rock. The little man threw himself at it with a howl. His erstwhile frozen companions felt their blood throb again. With great bounds they plunged after the little man. A minute of scrambling, falling, and pushing brought them to open air. They climbed the distance to their camp ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... succeeds—I'll not regret. If it doesn't, maybe the Lord will square it up to my account, against the thoughtless neglect I showed Salome. Now, I'll go out and interview my old acquaintance of the Sierras. I wonder is his voice as mellifluous as erstwhile!" ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... with eighteen others of lesser account, scathless go and all by reason of this good, tall fellow. Howbeit, I do know this same fellow for fellow of none account, and no fit mate for thee, noble daughter, love or no. A fierce, brawling, tatterdemalion this, that erstwhile tramped in company with long-legged ribald—a froward jesting fellow. Wherefore this fellow, though fellow serviceable, no fellow is for thee and for these sufficing ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... eye of the experienced fisherman, it is obvious that the St. Charles, with its sparkling rapids, and the deep, swirling pools formed by its numerous "elbows," must erstwhile have been a chosen, retreat of the noble salmon. Even now, notwithstanding the obstructions caused by the immense deposits of ship-yard refuse at its mouth, a few of these fine fish are caught every season by one or two persevering anglers from Quebec,—men who thrive on disappointment,—whose ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various

... events, when the dreams of the visionary enthusiasts have been so rudely dispelled, the sight of one of these bonds must present as much sadness and pathos to the beholder as the vision of an old Confederate bank note does to the erstwhile defenders of the "Lost ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald

... dream was ended. The glorious world of fancy which in the last hour she had built with such elaborate detail, over which it should be her exalted destiny to rule, lay shattered about her feet, its debris so many stumbling-blocks that prevented her from winning back to her erstwhile content in Scaramouche as he ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini

... Eyck's credit was so good that he succeeded in borrowing nearly five thousand dollars from erstwhile adamantine sceptics. ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon

... for its abundance of flowers. These not only grow in thick profusion in the quaint hillside gardens, but are planted beside the roadways, covering many an erstwhile bare and unsightly bank with trailing vines, gay nasturtiums and bright geraniums. There is something in the spirit of this hillside gardening, this planting of sweet blossoms for the public at large, that ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various

... the corner of the street when into the now dissonant "hole in the wall", amid the scene of wreck and disaster, stepped a tall dark man, with a closely cropped beard, who spoke English with an accent and who regarded the erstwhile proprietor and the minions of the law with ill-concealed ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... could be read the words, accompanied by a black hand, the forefinger pointing to the passage leading to the cloisters: "Comite civil, Comite de surveillance, Comite de bienfaisance." A few yards further on, you came to the door of the erstwhile sacristy, over which was inscribed: ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... to remove Dom Pedro—" Quick Before Jim Brown could finish, Jefferson Howard Obtained the floor and spake: "Ill suits the time For clownish words, and trivial is our cause If naught's at stake but John Cabanis, wrath, He who was erstwhile of the other side And came to us for vengeance. More's at stake Than triumph for New England or Virginia. And whether rum be sold, or for two years As in the past two years, this town be dry Matters but little— Oh yes, revenue For sidewalks, sewers; that is well ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters

... in this direction from Rookwood by an unfrequented carriage-road, which Luke had, from prudential reasons, avoided. All seemed consecrated to silence—to solitude—to the hush of nature; yet this quiet scene was the chosen retreat of lawless depredators, and had erstwhile been the theatre of feudal oppression. We have said that no habitation was visible; that no dwelling tenanted by man could be seen; but following the spur of the furthest mountain hill, some traces of a stone wall might ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... falling off in the consumption of game! The tragedy caused the temporary closing of the theaters, and the falling off in after-theater suppers may be said to have taken away the appetites of thousands of erstwhile consumers of game. Incidentally it showed ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... thought that she was too busy elevating the condition of her own sex to have much time to waste upon any member of his. Instinctively he knew, when he intercepted the first look between the lady of his dreams and his erstwhile college associate, that the hour had come that he had dreaded. Silvia Holland had at last met a man whom, consciously or unconsciously, she acknowledged king. His rival was there, upon the threshold of her life, and he was a rival to be feared. ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens

... happy morn! and let the world be glad, Night is no more, and all our fears are gone; Joy fills the souls that erstwhile had been sad, Hope fills the tomb, where ...
— Hymns from the Morningland - Being Translations, Centos and Suggestions from the Service - Books of the Holy Eastern Church • Various

... before the inhabitants of Sanborn had thrown back their blankets, Pete was saddling Blue Smoke, frankly amazed that the pony had shown no evidence of his erstwhile early-morning activities. He wondered if the horse were sick. Blue Smoke looked a bit fat, and his eye was dull—but it was the dullness of resentment rather than of poor physical condition. Well fed, and without exercise, Blue Smoke had become more or less logy, and he looked ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... The main change is that woman is entering more and more as an equal partner whose rights the modern law recognizes as the ancient law did not. She is no longer to be classed as exemplified by the famous words of Petruchio, when he claimed his wife, the erstwhile shrew, as his property in exactly the same sense as any domestic animal, linking the wife with the horse, the cow, the ass, as the chattels of the man. The law agreed to this attitude of the man, the Church supported ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson

... afterwards Psmith entered the room. On Psmith's brow there was a look of pensive care, and also a slight discoloration. When he removed his overcoat, Mike saw that his collar was burst and hanging loose and that he had no tie. On his erstwhile speckless and gleaming shirt front were number of finger-impressions, of a boldness and clearness of outline which would have made a ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse

... tamer of wild ones (forsooth!) broncho-twister with a fame that not the boundary of Chouteau County held, nor yet the counties beyond; Andy Green, erstwhile "Andre de Greno, champion bare-back rider of the Western Hemisphere," who had jumped through blazing hoops and over sagging bunting while he rode, turned handsprings and done other public-drawing feats, was prosaically, unequivocally "piled" at the ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower

... is the time when everything is glad, Their vernal greenery the fields renew, Each feathered songster chants with livelier tone, And lambkins leap and cloudless skies are blue, And all is gay and cheerful:—I alone Am singularly sad; Mine erstwhile happiness and calm content Yields to a sense of sorrowful surprise: Things that I thought were thus, are otherwise: And all is ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley

... of Byron, Scott, Poe, Stevenson, Russell, and Stockton, and the musical genius of Wagner, were steeped in the productive inspiration of these lawless adventurers, and Kingsley found in Lundy Island, the erstwhile nest of the reckless tribe, a ...
— Pirates and Piracy • Oscar Herrmann

... December day when Mr. Battersby was at the Wardrobe using the King's time in gossip about the new book of drollery, the merry Stuart had found out Sam Butler's poem and had given it the help of his royal approval. Erstwhile, Samuel the courtier had thought the work of Samuel the poet silly, and had given warranty of his opinion by suffering loss of one shilling eightpence on his purchase of the book. A view not to be wondered at in one who sets down "Midsummer Night's Dream" as "insipid ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... a strange figure. With difficulty we recognized it as the erstwhile Slim. He had no hat. His hair stuck out in all directions. One eye was puffing shut, blood oozed from a cut in his forehead and dripped from his damaged nose. One shirt sleeve had been half torn from its parent at the shoulder. ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... thereupon appealed, the Court of Appeals sustained Judge Foster, and the defendant was discharged. It is, however, satisfactory to record that the Legislature at its next session amended the penal code in such a way as to entirely deprive the wire-tappers and their kind of the erstwhile protection which they had enjoyed under ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train

... nightfall, the two men were joined by six others, who conversed with them in the darkest part of the Square Lamartine. And, among these new arrivals, Lupin was vastly astonished to recognize, by his figure and bearing, the famous Prasville, the erstwhile barrister, sportsman and explorer, now favourite at the Elysee, who, for some mysterious reason, had been pitchforked into the headquarters of police as secretary-general, with ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc

... piling waters of Cote Blanche, erstwhile blown out to sea, were now slowly settling back again after the offshore storm. The Belle Helene had risen from her bed in the mud now and rode free. Our soundings showed us that it would be easy now to break ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... as at parade, Under their colours stand display'd: Each regiment in order grows, That of the tulip, pink, and rose.— O thou, that dear and happy Isle, The garden of the world erstwhile, Thou Paradise of the four seas Which Heaven planted us to please, But, to exclude the world, did guard With wat'ry, if not flaming, sword; Unhappy! shall we never more That sweet militia restore? When gardens only ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... doings," Palmerston had said toward the end of his life, alluding to the open-minded Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Gladstone, and had he remained on earth for another generation, he would indeed have seen much done by his erstwhile followers under Gladstone's direction which he would have accounted passing strange. Admitting the democratic principle that the state owed it to itself to provide every man's child with an education, ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy

... the platform heard different things. Peter Dale and his little band of coadjutors were men enough to know that a new force had come amongst them. It is possible, even, that they, hardened as they were by time and circumstances, felt some thrill of that erstwhile enthusiasm which in their younger days had brought them out from the ranks of their fellows. To Aaron, listening with quivering attention to every sentence, it seemed like the consummation of all his dreams. ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... our room at the hotel, the erstwhile despised little tree met with an adulation that must have warmed the heart within its rough stem. When nothing more than three coloured glass globes, a gilded walnut, and a gorgeous humming-bird with wings and tail of spun glass had been suspended by narrow ribbon from its branches, Rosine, ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd

... Darkness in the guise of Mr. Button; Mrs. Button was in every way fit to be the latter's diabolical mate. Encouraged by sympathy and shrewd questions, he sketched in broad detail his short career, glorifying himself as the prize scholar and the erstwhile Grand Llama of Budge Street, and drawing a dismal picture of the factory. Barney Bill listened comprehendingly. Then, smoking a well-blackened clay, he began to utter maledictions on the suffocating life in towns and to extol his ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... his chief ringing in his ears, the following morning Guy Morrow set out for Brooklyn, to interview his erstwhile friends, the ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander

... window the soldier and his companion observed the abrupt encounter at the entrance of the manor grounds and the dispersion of the lease-holders like leaves before the autumn gusts. Constance, who had breathlessly watched the flight of the erstwhile assailants, felt her doubts reawakened as the horsemen drew ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... the loss of the good old times when they were provided with the comforts of life they were nevermore to know. With the moral question of slavery this paper has nothing to do. Facts, and facts alone, dictate the record. But who has been, and who is now, the friend of the erstwhile slave? The Northerner or the Southerner? Says one: "We have freed you, but we don't want you." Says the other: "We did not free you, but we will take you and make you comfortable. We love your people—you, who have rocked us on your faithful breasts—who have interlarded our very speech with ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... the editors would no doubt be interested to know of the feelings of American soldiers since the war. Sydney sat down to write a letter, and Jonas stood by his side and told him what to write: "To my erstwhile enemies in arms I send fraternal greetings, and welcome you as brothers in the new co-operative commonwealth which is to be"—and so on, the usual Internationalist patter, which all these agitators were spouting day ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... spendthrift, the erstwhile master of him who now could be his master, has died, leaving behind him a fortune. What was the sum? He glances back to the sheet in his hand and verifies his thought. Yes—eighty thousand pounds! A good fortune even in these luxurious days. He has died ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford

... just getting over that fence there," says he, in a rather stammering sort of way, the new strange pallor on that small, erstwhile happy face having disarranged his nerves a little, "when I saw you. I am glad I saw you, as I wanted to say that perhaps I spoke ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford

... a tremendous row when Hussain mounted him again after a brief respite, and bade him be moving. Nevertheless, protest was useless, and only led to torture. Finally, squealing and weeping, the camel moved off, while his erstwhile sympathizers regarded him blandly and unmoved, seeing that they were not disturbed, but permitted to munch in peace the remains of a meal. Hussain was soon out of sight. According to Abdur Kad'r's calculations, the Italian camp was in the center of the next important ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... his erstwhile contemptuous and insulting enemy, and began to consider the possibilities of a long and well-pointed lead-pencil as a means of vengeance. Pencils were intended for marking fair surfaces—might one not be used on this occasion for the cleaning of a sullied surface, ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren

... cathedral there is nothing at all extraordinary about Meaux. Many months afterwards one of his nurses told him in hospital that she had spent a long time in that very street. She had been with her father, the erstwhile Colonel of a line regiment, and a specialist in strategy, who for the pure love of the thing had laboriously gained permission to stay at Meaux and visit the famous battlefields of the Marne. She said they had been in the very room where General Joffre met Field-Marshal French, ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"

... the Princess of Graustark, erstwhile Miss Guggenslocker, was being dragged through the most unhappy affairs that ever beset a sovereign. Within a month she was to sign away two-thirds of her domain, transforming multitudes of her beloved and loving people into subjects of the hated Axphain, or to sell herself, body and soul, to ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon

... do but obey, which Thomas quietly did, although somewhat in fear of what Santry might do when at liberty. When the cell door was unlocked, the old plainsman, in a towering rage at the injustice of his incarceration, seemed inclined to choke his erstwhile jailer. ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... children may be born to erstwhile rural parents and may come to adult years with only a scant sense of the peace and beauty that can be found a few miles away, and often with little sense of anything else but the crumbling, teeming, stifling, noisy, sooty slums where ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior

... thrice three times triple delights in three various ways, joys earned by three tricks and three tricksters, cunningly won by treachery, fraud and villainy, which in this little sealed missive have I but erstwhile brought to thee.... ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke

... the tomb of my hopes!—Ah! when I thought of it, I felt the hand of death heavy upon me. That woman mocked me, it was she who first pointed her finger at me, singling me out to the idle crowd which surrounded her; it was she, it was those lips erstwhile so many times pressed to mine, it was that body, that soul of my life, my flesh and my blood, it was from that source the injury came; yea, the last pang of all, the most cowardly and the most bitter, the pitiless laugh that sneers ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... would always find in Hungary a most determined foe." It was thus improbable that any satisfactory arrangement would be made, particularly as the Austrians, oblivious to all that Jella[vc]i['c] had done for them, were quite prepared to give their erstwhile enemies, the Magyars, a free hand. And what the Magyars did was to confer upon Croatia this autonomy for educational and legal and religious matters, while they reserved financial, railway, fiscal and commercial ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein

... upstairs, and the Comtesse was in the act of beating a hasty retreat before that enemy who owned such a sweet musical voice; Suzanne reluctantly was preparing to follow her mother, while casting regretful glances towards the door, where she hoped still to see her dearly-beloved, erstwhile school-fellow. ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy

... end our troubled days Far from the maddening strife, Erstwhile to chortle roundelays Of peaceful country life; But now the phone rings night and morn, The trolleys crash and bang; We hear the fearsome auto horn ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens

... very foolish," said the erstwhile prima donna. "I might have known that when one is unlucky one may become still more unlucky. The superlative of bad luck has been my portion. But I did so wish to win. I wanted to bring back enough gold to send you ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... cast myself at his feet, and with tears in my eyes and in heartrending tones, bespeaking a humility as great as had been my erstwhile arrogance, I begged my life of him. I told him the truth—that for myself I was not afraid to die, but that I had a mother in the hills who was dependent on me, and who must starve if I ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... see several of Miko's men—erstwhile members of our crew and steward corps—scurrying from the turret along the upper bridge toward the dark and silent radio room. Snap was up there. But was he? The radio room glowed suddenly with dim light, ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings

... audibly, "they've got me—I knew they would. Even you could not keep me so hidden they couldn't find me." She jerked an accusing thumb over her shoulder at the corpulent bulk of her erstwhile jailer. "They've been trying to make me tell how I got out; but I won't tell. I may want to do it again, you see, ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford

... groaned Clymer dismally, looking with distaste at the sparkling grape juice being poured into the erstwhile champagne goblet by his plate. "The caf is crowded to-night," and he gazed with interest about the room. Colonel McIntyre, who had loitered behind to speak to several friends at an adjacent table, took the unoccupied seat by Mrs. Brewster and was soon ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... brought her home: she was born in this isle; And he will return to his domicile, And pass his days Alone, and not as he dreamt erstwhile!" ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy

... thing as far distant as ever in the future. Life went on, spent in the open for the most part, and in silent thoughtfulness by choice. Blackman, J. P., now languished in desuetude among the fallen remnants of an erstwhile promising structure of the law; and there being no further occupation for the members of the bar, the latter customarily spent much of the ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... from off the mountain crest Before their marvelling eyes, Whilst His disciples still He blessed, Was caught into the skies— The Angels, whose harmonious breath Erstwhile proclaimed His birth, Now hailed Him Victor over Death, Redeemer of the Earth; "Lift up your heads, ye Heavenly Gates!" Rang forth their joyful strain; "For lo! the King of Glory waits ...
— A Celtic Psaltery • Alfred Perceval Graves

... of the war-god was howling Erstwhile in the north, thou didst aid me: When it gaped in my hand, and it girded At the Valkyries' gate for to enter. But now wilt thou never, O warrior, At need in the storm-cloud of Odin Give me help in the tempest of targes ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown

... kept this secret conscientiously, for I'm not ungrateful by nature. But life's tricky. It happened a few years later that this Caesar laid rough hands on my most intimate fate. In anger at this I betrayed the secret of his Caesar mania and made my erstwhile benefactor such a laughing stock, that his existence became unbearable to him. And now listen how Nemesis overtakes one! A year later I wrote a book-I am, you must know, an author who's not made his name.... And in this ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg

... the erstwhile traitor at the Hampton ranch brought both boys to a realization that Muller was familiar with the manner of calling their station, as undoubtedly he had handled or conducted radio conversations with ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge

... consuming from 3 to 5 cubic feet of gas per hour, has been left to attain as best he might, by the use of burners excellent of their kind, to the maximum effect of the standard Argand. Now, however, Mr. Grimston seeks to make the small consumer partake of the advantages erstwhile reserved for the wholesale user of large and costly Siemens and other lamps, and he even looks to this class of patrons with particular care. The example which we now illustrate, in Fig. 1, is a sectional presentment precisely half the actual size of a 5-foot burner, which it is intended to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various

... and a hole on the thigh caused by a spear thrust. The trust imposed on this marauder proved to be not altogether ill placed for once in a river journey we were pursued by several long boats filled with armed dacoits. When these boats came too near for us to effect an escape the erstwhile dacoit leader, my attendant, stood up and gave a peculiar cry, which was evidently understood. For the pursuing boats ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose

... he said, half in sorrow, half in pride, as his erstwhile pupil popped her pony over a ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant

... magnetic persuasion and lively sense of humor they soothe this one and that, win the regard of the outlying community, attach many new members to the organization, and build up, out of discordant and erstwhile discontented elements, a harmonious and active church. This is the man for these martial times! If there are born leaders in every other department of the world's work, men who quietly but firmly assert their authority and supremacy in ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown

... had fastened round him a leather belt and bandolier combined, filled it with cartridges, and attached to it one of Penryn's revolvers in a leather holster, it would have been rather difficult to recognise in him the erstwhile smart and spruce Murray Frobisher. Rather he resembled a South African transport-rider in a state of disrepair, and of so truculent an appearance that he might have been expected to put to flight with ease, and singlehanded, a considerable ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... the erstwhile leather manufacturer, the present President, Herr Essendorf. I hope you liked those fat children. They always seemed to me ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... pall of bewilderment was slowly settling over Rosie's erstwhile smiling face. Her plump shoulders went up in a helpless shrug, and she turned her round blue eyes ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... exponent. My niece Johanna, whom I had destined for the part of Senta, did not like the role, because it offered little opportunity for splendid costumes. She preferred ZAMPA and FAVORITA, partly to please her new protector, my erstwhile RIENZI enthusiast, Tichatschck, partly for the sake of THREE BRILLIANT COSTUMES which the management had to furnish for each of these parts. In fact, these two ringleaders of the Dresden opera of that day had formed an alliance of rebellion against ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... into the crypt where lies the dust of the great man. Then we saw the statue of John C. Breckinridge in the public square, and visited various old ebb-tide mansions where the "quarters" had fallen into decay, and the erstwhile inhabitants had moved to the long row of tenements down by the cotton-mill. My train whistled and we were half a mile from the station, but the General said we would get there in time—and we did. I bade my friends good-by and quite forgot to thank them for all their ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... unshielded the erstwhile contesting twain. Mrs. Milo's look seemed to fall upon them like a blow. "Oh! Oh!" she cried in ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates

... the gasoline without the hope. Whereat the philosopher in me emerges to remark—but who cares? Philosophy proceeds backward, and points out errors of thought and action chiefly when it has become too late to mend them. But it is possible to be poor in the possession of erstwhile prospective wealth, and rich in retrospective poverty. Oh, blessed is he who ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt

... carts below on the road, and their cargo of red mineral bounding and thundering down the iron chute. And now all gone—all fallen away into this sunny silence and desertion: a family of squatters dining in the assayer's office, making their beds in the big sleeping room erstwhile so crowded, keeping their wine in the tunnel that once rang ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... drowsy slumbers flying to their cell, My sudden joy converted was to bale; My wonted sorrows still with me do dwell. I looked round about on hill and dale, But I could neither my fair Chloris view, Nor yet the satyr which erstwhile I slew. ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith

... foot of the hill he met the fair young girl whose eyes had erstwhile followed him so wistfully, and he flung himself into her arms ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce

... the Abbaye and the Luxembourg, the erstwhile convents of the Visitation and the Sacre-Coeur, the cloister of the Oratorians, the Salpetriere, and the St. Lazare hospitals, and there was, of course, the Temple, and, lastly, the Conciergerie, to which those prisoners were brought whose trial would take place within the next few ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... whatsoever," said he, but sooner than give the real reason, added lamely, "My daughter is too young." Now he thought he saw impending duty in his sister's somber eyes and poise. He knew it when she began by rolling her r's—it was so like their childhood's spiritual guide and mentor, MacTaggart, erstwhile of the "Auld Licht" persuasion, ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... writing" is the use of poetical words in prose. Enow, erstwhile, besprent, methinks, agone, and thine are examples of a large class of words which, though in perfectly good taste in poetry, are in extremely poor taste in prose. They are out of place; and so attract attention to themselves, not to the thought they express. ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... sturdy oxen had vanished, to be replaced here and there by a lean scraggy beast or two, all skin and bone; the yards were destitute of ricks, the hovels were deserted or inhabited by diseased and half-starved scarecrows; erstwhile honest villagers, rendered desperate by hunger, prowled in the woods to pounce on any unwary traveller whom chance ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens

... adjoining the room allotted to Benton had been unoccupied when he had gone out that forenoon. Between his quarters and these erstwhile vacant ones lay a room forming a sort of buffer space. Here a sideboard, a card-table, and desk made the "neutral zone," as Van called it, available for his guests as a territory either separating ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... looking about the room again and after prodding the gay seat in the corner, lifted the cover and picked up a folded blanket, shaking out the erstwhile padded cushion. He hung the blanket over the back of ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... her with the disgust of the seasoned veteran for the raw recruit. This, however, her erstwhile friend might have been pardoned for not suspecting, seeing that whenever she caught Dorothea's eye she was immediately the recipient of a wide and beaming smile that even one less vain might have accepted as a tribute to her attractions. It never wavered even while Jennie shook ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... armed men, a miscellaneous crowd of cheering civilians, and an important group of Basuto chiefs who had been specially invited to witness the ceremonious annexation of the conquered territory and to hear proclaimed the Royal pleasure that the erstwhile "South African Republic" should henceforth be known by the new, yet older, ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry

... let Leonie and her aunt out, Ellen, the middle-aged maid, almost an heirloom in the family of Cuxson, bristling in starched cap and apron, let in the erstwhile plague of her life, but now as ever the light of her eyes, ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest

... by one, Jake Bolton, a man of rugged exterior whose integrity had become a proverb on the Turf. This man was Saltash's erstwhile trainer, and a very curious bond existed between them. Utterly unlike in every respect, the one as subtle as the other was simple, yet the two men were friends. How it had come about neither of them quite knew. When Saltash had been his ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell

... face to face with him. It would be an interesting encounter. Hunted him for weeks, and to-day laid eyes on him for the first time. Had my clumsy paws on him this very afternoon. He seemed so willing to be locked up that I grew careless. Biff! and he and his accomplice, an erstwhile valet, had me trussed like a chicken and bundled into the clothes-press. Took my star, credentials, playing-card, and invitation. It was near eleven o'clock when I roused the housekeeper. I ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath

... sent, in the Tartar, to bring aboard representatives of the English government, Palm Island belonging to Great Britain. The munitinous crew had no spirit of resistance left. The erstwhile commander of the rebelling forces was locked in his stateroom, until Lieutenant Walling was reinforced, when others of the leaders were put ...
— The Motor Girls on Waters Blue - Or The Strange Cruise of The Tartar • Margaret Penrose



Words linked to "Erstwhile" :   past



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