Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adverb Formerly.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Formerly; of old time; aforetime.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adverb Formerly; aforetime.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adverb archaic Formerly, previously.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From before +‎ time.

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Examples

  • So I say, I, Ounenk, fighter beforetime of beasts and men.

    THE SUNLANDERS 2010

  • Bad luck, exciptin 'her, there was niver but one woman I loved, an' that woman had mated beforetime.

    CHAPTER 19 2010

  • “Tell us about the beforetime,” the audience begs.

    Veracity LAURA BYNUM 2010

  • In the beforetime, they called us psychics or intuitives . . .

    Veracity LAURA BYNUM 2010

  • Those of you old enough to remember the beforetime are hereby charged with dispensing the truth to your fellow citizens.

    Veracity LAURA BYNUM 2010

  • For even the birds of Ares that haunted the desert isle beforetime, not even them did we find.

    The Argonautica 2008

  • Yet none of the chieftains knew this; but far onward they sped starting from the Hyllean land, and they left behind all the islands that were beforetime thronged by the Colchians — the Liburnian isles, isle after isle, Issa, Dysceladus, and lovely Pityeia.

    The Argonautica 2008

  • For in book i.chap. ix: 9, the historian remarks in a, parenthesis, “Beforetime, in Israel, when a man went to inquire of God, thus he spake: Come, and let us go to the seer; for he that is now called a prophet was beforetime called a seer.”

    Theologico-Political Treatise 2007

  • “The Horims dwelt also in Seir beforetime; but the children of Esau succeeded them, when they had destroyed them from before them, and dwelt in their stead; as Israel did unto the land of his possession, which the Lord gave unto them.”

    Theologico-Political Treatise 2007

  • And it came to pass, when all that knew him beforetime saw that, behold, he prophesied among the prophets, then the people said one to another, What is this that is come unto the son of Kish?

    Probably Just One Of Those Funny Coincidences 2006

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