former

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. One that forms; a maker or creator: a former of ideas.
2. n. A member of a school form: a fifth former.
3. adj. Occurring earlier in time.
4. adj. Of, relating to, or taking place in the past.
5. adj. Coming before in place or order; foregoing.
6. adj. Being the first of two mentioned.
7. adj. Having been in the past: a former ambassador.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. Being before in place; fore; first; foremost.
2. Being or happening before in time; preceding another or something else in order of time; prior.
3. Past; especially, long past; ancient.
4. Preceding or going before in a series; antecedent in order of thought, of action, etc.: specifically applied to the antecedent one of two things, or of two parts or divisions of anything.
5. Bygone.
6. n. A predecessor.
7. n. One who forms, fashions, creates, or makes; a creator.
8. n. Specifically, a pattern in or upon which anything is shaped, as a piece of wood used for shaping cartridges and gun-wads; any mechanism contributing to give shape to an article in process of manufacture.
9. n. One of a number of appliances and machines used in bending and shaping sheet-metal into tubes, cylinders, boxes, and other forms. For making cylindrical blanks for round vessels and pipes, the machines employ long bending-rolls in groups of three, the sheet-metal being bent to the right diameter by the size and adjustment of the rolls. Small machines using two short rolls having irregular faces are used in forming blanks for pepper-boxes, candlesticks, and other small cylindrical vessels. Forming-machines for making square or triangular blanks for boxes and pipes are properly sheet-metal bending-machines. Wire-forming machines, used in making wire rings, handles, and bails, all use rolls or sections of cylinders round which the wire is bent to give it the proper shape.
10. n. The templet used for the cutting of gear-teeth; the guide used for giving desired motion to the cutter when forming or cutting irregularly shaped pieces in a profiling-machine.
11. n. In electricity, a frame upon which the coils of certain types of armatures and transformers are wound.

Wiktionary

1. adj. previous
2. adj. first of aforementioned two items. Used with the, often without a noun.
3. n. Someone who forms something.
4. n. An object used to form something.
5. n. Someone in, or of, a certain form (class).

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. One who forms; a maker; a creator.
2. n. A shape around which an article is to be shaped, molded, woven wrapped, pasted, or otherwise constructed.
3. n. A templet, pattern, or gauge by which an article is shaped.
4. n. A cutting die.
5. adj. Preceding in order of time; antecedent; previous; prior; earlier; hence, ancient; long past.
6. adj. Near the beginning; preceeding.
7. adj. Earlier, as between two things mentioned together; first mentioned.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. the first of two or the first mentioned of two
2. adj. (used especially of persons) of the immediate past
3. adj. belonging to the distant past
4. adj. referring to the first of two things or persons mentioned (or the earlier one or ones of several)
5. adj. belonging to some prior time