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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



... "All the world is ruled by the same passion and qualities." In the old days it needed a Dickens, and, later, a Neil Lyons to discover the qualities of the criminal classes; now war has brought us all together—the erstwhile city merchant warms himself before the same brazier as the man who would have picked his pocket three years before—and we suddenly find that we are no better than the beggar, and that a man who stole apples from a stall is no worse at heart than ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett

... 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 ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... Mally, pointing to a white speck in a green field. "Better run up quiet or she'll dash off like a deer," and making some mysterious sign to Jack, the erstwhile pathfinders darted off themselves ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis

... 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 questions, military legislation and the laws relating ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein

... worked toward avoiding it. But we must not misunderstand the meaning of certain terms. Neutrality does not mean indifference. The present Austro-Servian conflict is to a supreme degree interesting to us. In the first place, one of our erstwhile opponents is fighting against a much stronger enemy. In the natural course of things Servia, which till lately was expressing, in a rather open way, her solidarity as a nation, still provoking us, and ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times

... Our erstwhile guardians gathered up the handcuffs and chain and departed for Niagara Falls, while we, under new guardians, were led away into the prison. While we were in the office, our number had been added to by other squads ...
— The Road • Jack London

... Thee do I seek that thou mayst obtain 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

... love and grief dissolve in the joyous light! But see, as if dispelled by the foolish prayer, The wonder fades! 'Tis dark, and lonely Under the heaven I stand as erstwhile. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... upon 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 ...
— 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

... at 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

... news to Mr. Caryll. He found that between himself and his half-brother there lay an even deeper debt than he had at first supposed, and already acknowledged. In the delicious contemplation of Hortensia in tears beside him stricken all but to the point of death, he forgot entirely his erstwhile scruples that being nameless he had no name to offer her. In imagination he conjured up the scene. It made, he found, a very pretty picture. He would ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini

... The erstwhile Liberal again went on the road with John Thomas, to deliver him over to the authority of Milt Kennedy. If Milt could get results by simply elevating his eyebrows, Milt was the ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung

... 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 ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... 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 ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt

... ryots and nomads with whom they are wont to compare themselves, and from these standards they confidently judge the world at large. The mudbake colors up like a guilty school-boy upon seeing me proceed without delay to examine the leathern case. The erstwhile orderly arranged contents are found tumbled about in dire confusion. My bag of about one hundred kerans have dwindled nearly half that number as the result of being in their custody ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... marshes all propagate that well-known pest the "Jersey skeeter." There can be no question of the truthfulness of all that has been said of him in song and story. This was fully attested by an erstwhile happy quintet of travelers. There was apparently nothing in the wide world to mar that happiness until the ominous growl of distant thunder gave warning of a rapidly oncoming storm. With its nearer approach it was decided to seek shelter, so upon seeing a short distance ahead the open ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... experienced seaman and knew more than the rudiments of navigation. Under his direction the schooner returned to the little African port that he called home. There the three erstwhile prisoners left the ship to ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake

... 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 book I described incidents ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg

... unselfishness; this building up of a condition in which a community now judged itself by the standards of chastity, righteousness and neighborly kindness; this renovation of whole centres of life till the erstwhile deserts wherein not a flower of gentleness had bloomed, now blossomed as gardens of delight, watered with never-ceasing streams of brotherly love—were produced, not by an appeal to society itself, not by denunciation of laws and customs, ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman

... 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 ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... August came. Miss Lavendar was to be married in it. Two weeks later Anne and Gilbert would leave for Redmond College. In a week's time Mrs. Rachel Lynde would move to Green Gables and set up her lares and penates in the erstwhile spare room, which was already prepared for her coming. She had sold all her superfluous household plenishings by auction and was at present reveling in the congenial occupation of helping the Allans pack up. Mr. Allan was to preach his farewell ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

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

... little house in Prince's Avenue the same old faces all awaited them, only they were ten years older. Old Marton hastened, as erstwhile, to open the carriage door; only his moving crest was as white as that of a cockatoo. Father Fromm, too, was waiting at the door, but could no longer run to meet his guests, for his left arm and leg were paralyzed: he leaned upon a long bony young man, who had spent much ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai

... above my head, I told them, quietly but determinedly, that I could not understand, my English speech seemed vaguely to indicate a sudden collapse of the acquaintance, the opening of a gulf between us, destined to widen to the whole length and breadth of Yang-kai, swallowing up their erstwhile confidences. One of them facetiously remarked that the gentleman wished to eat his rice; and as they cleared out, falling over each other and the high step at the entrance to the room, I thought that no matter how old they are, Chinese are but little children. But had I treated them as ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

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

... holes to the very brim. The molten material cooled into fire-hardened rock. The rains descended and the snows melted. Under their erosive influence the original mountains were cut down somewhat, but the erstwhile molten material, being, as we have said, fire-hardened, wasted very little, or not at all, and, as a consequence, stands forth above its present surroundings in exact mould of the ancient ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White

... despaired I never, And had spent my life as erstwhile There to aid the harsh old woman, To her fiery tongue submitting: But 'twas this that brought me evil, This that caused me greatest anguish, When to wolf was changed my husband, To a growling bear converted, ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous

... in New York. That was enough for him. He was "pals" in ten minutes; in fifteen, from his eminence on the deckhouse, with a biscuit in one hand and a tumbler of much-diluted Hollands in the other, he gazed down at his erstwhile beach fellows with almost the disdainful wonder of a tourist from a white ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... in gentler tones; and when he at length concluded, the party rose slowly and humbly to their 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, ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... Incidents of this kind, which to the victims have more of tragedy than any play in their repertoire, occur almost every day during the theatrical season, but nothing is done to prevent the ever-increasing scandal. The erstwhile proprietor of the company returns by Pullman car to New York, complains loudly about "poor business," a "sunken fortune," &c., and then prepares to take out another combination. As for his dupes, who are probably half-starving in some third class western ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins

... begun and for its brevity. For the famous 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 of as many different companies ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... his most effective accomplice, but such tortuous psychology has failed to satisfy the fishermen. To them we seem callous souls, to whom the spirit world is alien. This ghostly encroachment on our erstwhile quiet domain has had more than one inconvenient result. The Mission is very short of houses for its workmen, and was planning to rebuild and put in order a part of this now haunted domicile for one family. The ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding

... vigorous in the matter of appetite. Her days of convalescence—But why go into them? They are interesting only to the person who is emerging from a period of suffering and fasting. Why dwell upon the reflections of Eddie Ten Eyck as he saw an erstwhile stranger transformed into an old acquaintance before his very eyes? Why go into the painful details attending the stealthy payment of nearly $17,000 by the party of the first part to the party of the second part, and ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon

... the doorway the hesitant form of erstwhile Miriam Binswanger, her eyes dim as if obscured by a fog of tulle, over one shoulder the flushed face of Mr. Irving Shapiro, and in turn over his the dark, quick features of Ray, flashing their ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... did enter, and, with a swiftness of perception that belied the vacuous stare of the fishlike eyes, took in the situation at a glance; for LeFroy had already hinted to her of the relation which existed between his erstwhile superior and this girl from the land of the midnight sun. Whereupon Big Lena had kept her own counsel and had patiently bided her time, and now her time had come, and she was in no wise minded that the fulness of her vengeance should be marred ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... encampment two faces were missing until late—Banion and Jackson of the Missourians. Sam Woodhull, erstwhile column captain of the great train, of late more properly to be called unattached, also was absent. It was supposed by their friends that these men might be out late, superintending the butchering, or that at worst they ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough

... from the society of his erstwhile travelling companions and took to travelling townwards by an earlier train. He sometimes tries to enlist the sympathy and attention of a chance acquaintance in details of the whistling prowess of his best canary or the dimensions of his largest beetroot; he scarcely recognises himself as the man ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki

... heir, young in his dwelling, Whom God-Father sent to solace the people. He had marked the misery malice had caused them, 15 [1]That reaved of their rulers they wretched had erstwhile[2] Long been afflicted. The Lord, in requital, Wielder of Glory, with world-honor blessed him. Famed was Beowulf, far spread the glory Of Scyld's great son in the ...
— Beowulf - An Anglo-Saxon Epic Poem • The Heyne-Socin

... necessarily have to be of an old New York family in order to inhabit one of those north-side dwellings. Robert Walmsley, of O. Henry's "The Defeat of the City," lived there, and the boyhood to which he looked back was one spent on an up-state farm; while another erstwhile tenant in the exclusive row was the devious Artemas Quibble, of Mr. Arthur Train's narrative, who began life humbly somewhere in grey New England, and ended it, so far as the reader was informed, in Sing Sing Prison. Then there was the ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice

... erstwhile Jim, leant against the wall and felt his head was whirling round. Then he inspected himself again, but at that moment a shock-headed dirty mite of four years brushed past him and began to clamber up the stairs, pushing his way through the horde of small babies on each ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant

... 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 ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham

... interview Carthoris watched, catlike, for some indication that Vas Kor recognized in the battered panthan the erstwhile gorgeous Prince of Helium; but the sleepless nights, the long days of marching and fighting, the wounds and the dried blood had evidently sufficed to obliterate the last remnant of his likeness to his former self; and then Vas Kor had seen him but twice in all his life. ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... an awkward silence. Mr. Pett coughed. The matter of young Mr. Crocker's erstwhile connection with the New York Chronicle was one which they had tacitly decided ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... energies, I will now explain to thee. Pasimondas, exultant in thy misfortune and eager to compass thy death, hastens to the best of his power his nuptials with thy Iphigenia; that so he may enjoy the prize that Fortune, erstwhile smiling, gave thee, and forthwith, frowning, reft from thee. Whereat how sore must be thy grief, if rightly I gauge thy love, I know by my own case, seeing that his brother Hormisdas addresses himself to do me on the same day a like wrong in regard of Cassandra, whom I love more than aught ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... city, making good or ill the deficiencies of the telegrams. One fact, however, had leaped to light, unassailably true. The Clayfords, stationed on the north of the line at Thiepval, had redeemed their name and added a new lustre to their erstwhile shining record. The devotion of the officers, the discipline of the men, had borne their fruits. At a most critical moment the Clayfords had been forced to change front against a flank attack, under a galling ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason

... than the white man, and that the Mulatto is inferior to both the parent races in these vital functions. These differences are considered a powerful factor in lung degeneration, and proof positive of physical inferiority. In these respects he tacitly repudiates his erstwhile principle that "a physiological law may hold good for one race and not for another," and assumes that the two races are subject to like conditions of disease ...
— A Review of Hoffman's Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 1 • Kelly Miller

... prisoner of twenty years' standing.' When, in 1696-1698, Saint-Mars mentions 'mon ancien prisonnier,' 'my prisoner of long standing,' he obviously means Dauger, not Mattioli—above all, if Mattioli died in 1694. M. Funck-Brentano argues that 'mon ancien prisonnier' can only mean 'my erstwhile prisoner, he who was lost and is restored to me'—that is, Mattioli. This is not the view of M. Jung, or ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang

... over which I am driving now! This dam that erstwhile was a very blasphemy, an obscenity flung on the marshy meadows with their reeds, their cat-tails, and their wide-leaved swamp-dock clusters! It had been used by the winds as a veritable dumping ground for ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove

... one good thing about the 69th Squadron I.Y., they had excellent saddles. The first time we turned out in full marching order was a terrible affair, and the following may help to convey an idea of the tout ensemble of an erstwhile peaceful citizen: ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross

... turned topsy-turvy. In conversation one has no time for so minute an analysis of one's feelings. I therefore summed them up in the only word. Captain Vauvenarde! The wild goose of my absurd chase! Found by this Flibbertigibbet of a fellow, while I, Simon de Gex, erstwhile M.P., was fooling about War Offices and regiments! It was grotesque. It was monstrous. It ought not to have been allowed. And yet it saved me a vast ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... in many instances the Fathers would first win the Indians' confidence by giving them blankets, beads and such things as attracted them, then by degrees unfolded the tenets of religion and mysteries of faith, to which in most cases these erstwhile savages clung with firmness and gave many edifying signs of true and sincere christianity. A band of white beads around the head distinguished the christian ...
— Chimes of Mission Bells • Maria Antonia Field

... 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 in the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... when his erstwhile taproom roisterer, Will Shakespeare, was dead, defied "insolent Greece or haughty Rome" to show his superior. With such authority, I feel safe in at least defying the contemporary schools of insolent Russia or haughty Germany to send forth a better musicwright ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes

... informers became again a pregnant danger to the erstwhile Ku-Klux operators and again a squad of men with rifles set out to cope ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck

... entered this charmed spot; and that it remained so fine was but evidence of the care of those to whom she had given strict orders seven years past, that in and out of season it must be ever kept as it had erstwhile been. She had never entered the place since the day the young Marquis of Wessex, whom she had imprisoned for marrying secretly and without her consent, on his release came here, and, with a concentrated bitterness ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

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

... 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 ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... leave ... in a day or two with a new dietary and some good advice. The latter in tabloid form being:—"Drop business for a time, go into it again slowly, and gradually creep into your job." All of which is wise, and commends itself greatly to my erstwhile mind, but is much like saying, "Jump off the Brooklyn bridge, "slowly." ... I am not resigned, of course. Because I cannot see the end. Definiteness is so imperative to some natures. However, I think that I have done all that an exacting ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... built, scythes and axes were wielded in place of the rifle that now rested in idleness above the cabin door. A new era had dawned on the Oregon, and gentle peace like a brooding spirit hovered above the erstwhile ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson

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

... broad acres are being rapidly occupied by a progressive and enterprising husbandry. Her cities and villages keep pace with her rural development. The dreams of the pioneers are fast becoming realities. The erstwhile home of the red man and the feeding ground of the bison, are destined soon to be thickly dotted over with luxurious farmsteads, made beautiful by the arts of civilization and prosperous by the skill and industry of a ...
— The Stewardship of the Soil - Baccalaureate Address • John Henry Worst

... and pistol, and his herders had been weaponed against attack. Now he strode his acres unafraid and unthreatened, and his employees carried rifle or six-shooter only for protection against prowling coyotes or "loafer" wolves. Although the cow hands of his erstwhile enemies still belted themselves with death, they no longer made war. The ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter

... A. D. Blood Compelled me 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— ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters

... torn from others as if by the hands of angry giants; and the brook was a raging torrent. Down here, in the Hollow, the destruction had been less, but in the woods, above, the giants had worked their will, and many an empty gap showed where, erstwhile, had stood ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol

... on to support their comrades. The nearest friendly troops, including their artillery, were back at Seletskoe, thirty versts away. On October 29th the Reds returned to Avda. The noise from that village and reports brought by patrols indicated that this enemy who erstwhile was on the run, and whom our high command now held lightly, was determined to regain Kodish. And while striking heavily at their enemy on the railroad as we have seen, the Red Guards now fell upon this single company of Americans strung out along ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... was deliciously familiar to him; crimson-curtained, green carpeted, shining with heavy gilt picture frames and prismatic chandeliers. Often with posies and candies and theater-tickets he had strutted across that erstwhile magic threshold and fairly lolled in the big deep-upholstered chairs while waiting for the silk-rustling advent of the ladies. But now, with his suitcase clutched in his hand, no Armenian peddler of laces and ointments could have felt more ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott

... that clasped erewhile Hadrian's warm hands, That now found them but cold! O hair bound erstwhile with the pressing bands! O eyes too diffidently bold! O bare female male-body like A god that dawns into humanity! O lips whose opening redness erst could strike Lust's seats with a soiled art's variety! ...
— Antinous: A Poem • Fernando Antonio Nogueira Pessoa

... 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 ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose

... belief that her marvellous spirit of adaptation was bound to make itself felt in South Africa as it had elsewhere. Sir Alfred Milner knew that as time went on the Afrikanders would realise that their erstwhile enemies had given them the position to which they had always aspired, a position which entitled them to take a place among the other great nations of the world. He knew, too, that their natural spirit of pride and ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill

... Up went the erstwhile falling poise. "You're badly mistaken, madam. I'm a member of this order myself, and a finer lot of fellows it has never been ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... that dull, black wax and mould it so closely to the surface of the mother-of-pearl that it shall take every delicate marking of the shell, and when you raise it the seven-hued glory shall smile at you from the erstwhile colourless surface. For, though it be to the naked eye imperceptible, all the surface of the mother-of-pearl is in delicate ridges and furrows, like the surface of a newly-ploughed field; and when the ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant

... she exclaimed, "that you are the Dor-ul-Otho?" And now the erstwhile doubting eyes ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... obtain; But 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

... is 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 ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... and consequently uncertain temper, seemed for a 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 be touched ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... with herself Angela tried to put the hateful but insinuating thought away from her,—it was the first slight shadow on the fairness of her love-dream,—and it was like one of those sudden clouds crossing a bright sky which throws a chill and depression over the erstwhile smiling landscape. To doubt Florian seemed like doubting her own existence. She put the "Phillida" picture back in the portfolio and paced slowly to and fro in her studio, considering deeply. Love and Fame—Fame and Love! She had both,—and ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... message in telegraphic characters, and all the rest of it, were simply the kind of bait at which so eccentric a person might be expected to bite. The gentleman with one ear larger than the other desired to find the elusive Mademoiselle D., erstwhile dispenser of kisses at an East Side charity bazaar, and, consequently, he was following up every possible clew. He wanted 'Mr. House-smith,' ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen

... 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

... to meet the requirements of modern life, well-planned roads and streets have been constructed in all directions, crossing the old canals at many points and lined with well-built houses, for the most part of brick, in which the greater part of the erstwhile riparian population now resides. The centre of the city is the royal palace (see SIAM), situated in a bend of the river and enclosed by walls. At a radius of nearly a mile is another wall within which lies the closely-packed ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... sixty-five thousand dollars by various schemes of this character, the tardy Legislature finally amended the penal code in such a way as to do away with the farcical doctrine of the McDuff case and drove all our erstwhile clients out of business. ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train

... seen Mr. Skinner, sir," the erstwhile warrior replied, "but he wasn't very sympathetic. I think he jumped to the conclusion that I was attempting to trade him my empty sleeve. He informed me that there wasn't sufficient business to keep his present staff of salesmen busy, so then I told him I'd take anything, ...
— The Go-Getter • Peter B. Kyne

... 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 ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham

... became a proverb upon the frontier that any man born on Texas soil would shoot, just as any horse born there would "buck." There is truth back of most proverbs, although to-day both horses and men of Texas are losing something of their erstwhile bronco character. That out of such conditions, out of this hardy and indomitable population, the great state could bring order and quiet so soon and so permanently over vast unsettled regions, is proof alike of the fundamental sternness and justness of the American ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough

... in this case to be a mare—I repeat—I am nothing if not original!)—and, before doing so, I should like to express my sympathy with the Duke of WESTMINSTER and JOHN PORTER, who have indeed had an Orme-ful of trouble with the unfortunate erstwhile Derby Favourite, which would undoubtedly have been my selection had he not been scratched! ...
— Punch Volume 102, May 28, 1892 - or the London Charivari • Various

... his men on the smooth green in front of the Castle of Crichton, and had dismissed them, when a gaberlunzie or privileged beggar, a long lank rascal with a mat of tangled hair, and clad in a cast-off leathern suit which erstwhile some knight had worn under his mail, leaped suddenly from the shelter of a hedge. Instinctively Sholto laid ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett

... his companion established that which was the nearest approach to a home that either for the time might claim; and it was thus that both undertook once more that old and bootless human experiment of seeking to escape from one's own self. Silent now, and dutifully obedient enough was this erstwhile English beauty, Mary Connynge; yet often and often Law caught the question of her gaze. And often enough, too, he found his own questioning running back up the water trails, and down the lakes and across the wide ocean, in a demand which, fiercer and fiercer as it grew, he yet remained too bitter ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... should go to this extreme to recall it? A heat-flash of jealousy went over me. She had written to some other fellow; for there always is some other fellow, hang him!... And then a grand idea came into my erstwhile stupid head. Here she was, alone with me in a cab. It was the opportunity of a lifetime. I could force her to ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various

... 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 the ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... was near—the moment he heard her footsteps howling insistently till she ignored all of the others and came directly to him. It became a matter of pride with her to take him into the streets where people would still look askance at the erstwhile "man-eater," and comment on her courage in handling the "brute." While she and the "brute" had the little joke between them, which she later confided to Ben, that Jack McMillan's misdemeanors were merely the result of an undisciplined nature handled unsympathetically, and that at ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling

... was so good that he succeeded in borrowing nearly five thousand dollars from erstwhile ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon

... wife, Gillian, who now looked prettier than usual in her wedding attire—for the ceremony uniting them in indissoluble bonds had only just been performed; old Greenford, the grandsire of the bride; and Master John Wolfe, of the Bible and Crown in Paul's Churchyard, bookseller, erstwhile Dick's indulgent master, and now his partner, Master Taverner having very prudently invested the contents of the silver coffer in the purchase of a share in his employers business, with the laudable determination of bestirring himself zealously in it ever after; and, as another opportunity may ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... all," said Emma McChesney, as one whose patience is fast slipping away. "Mr. Buck will see you next week." Then, turning to her son as the door closed on the drooping figure of the erstwhile buoyant ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber

... to the camp remained a 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 day sitting ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough

... English sailor, squirmed, but chivalrous old Dick Humphries, Cornish fisherman and erstwhile American salmon capitalist, beamed upon her benevolently as ever. He bore women too large a portion of his rough heart to mind them, as he said, when they were in the doldrums, or when their limited vision would ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London

... next 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 or connecting ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... you fit askew where erstwhile Fair lines bewrayed a figure not too svelte? What if your shoulder-seams are like to burst, while A sad hiatus ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • 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

... wondered he had seen so little before. He grew slowly to feel almost for the first time the Veil that lay between him and the white world; he first noticed now the oppression that had not seemed oppression before, differences that erstwhile seemed natural, restraints and slights that in his boyhood days had gone unnoticed or been greeted with a laugh. He felt angry now when men did not call him "Mister," he clenched his hands at the "Jim Crow" ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois

... ballot, followed 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

... that he was the centre of interest, Mr. Crewe, carrying a neat little bag full of papers, took his seat beside the Honourable Jacob Botcher, nodding to that erstwhile friend as a man of the world should. And Mr. Botcher, not to be outdone, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... the wreaths that erstwhile hung so gay, Above the brows of Queenston Heights where we impatient lay; Niagara fretted at our feet, as chafing at his post, And impotence to turn the fleets that bore ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon

... with arch coquetry would have sounded highly amusing to ears less self-atuned than the erstwhile wearer of the Balmacaan. But he heard in it only the flattering tribute to a man chosen of men; and the hand that reached ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer

... 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 out the anchor ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough

... 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 ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles

... 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

... to jine de high jinks!" cried the erstwhile butler, running hospitably to take his horse. It was ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... classes, has adopted the much more commonplace broadcloth of the West. The bold, hawk-like features of Malik Umar Hyat Khan of Tiwana in the Punjab were as characteristic of the fighting Pathan from the North as were the Rajah of Mahmudabad's more delicate features of the Mahomedan aristocracy of the erstwhile kingdom of Oudh. The white swadeshi garments affected by Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, from the United Provinces—who opened the last meeting of the Indian National Congress at Lahore with a presidential ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... had a native fondness for animals, and he had already thought of buying a pony with his first few months' wages. But the vision of his erstwhile companion Overland, perhaps imprisoned and hopeless in the grip of the "bunch," annulled that desire. He would save every cent for ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs

... leave these steps in the enlargement and renovation of his erstwhile hunting lodge entirely to professionals. Whether away fighting in the French and Indian Wars or directing the course of action of the Continental Army, he never forgot what was happening at his country seat. His correspondence is full of minute directions regarding the finishing of certain ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... village 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 ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... 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, ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster

... opened by roads. A portion was sold, but most leased; and within a year of purchase a thriving yeomanry, numbering nearly nine hundred souls and owning 74,000 sheep, 1,500 cattle, and 500 horses, were at work in the erstwhile empty tract. Four prosperous years have since added to their numbers, and the rent they pay more than recoups the Treasury for the interest on its outlay in ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves

... of Giovanni I 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 ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... physical exercise, no "reducicle" could have achieved the extraordinary alteration in Mr. Magnus' appearance that was in fact induced by his anxiety over his prospective prosecution of Higgleby. Whereas erstwhile he had been smug and condescending, complacent, lethargic and ponderous, he now became drawn, nervous, apprehensive and obsequious. Moreover, he was markedly thinner. He was obviously on a decline, caused by sheer funk. Speak sharply to him and he ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... "fight on as thou didst in thy youth-time. Erstwhile didst thou say that thou wouldst not let thy greatness sink so long as life lasteth. Defend thou thy life with all might. I will support thee ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... hope and trust that the best of American Christianity and civilization may be equal to the emergency, giving the Filipinos a larger measure of liberty and civil rights than they had under the erstwhile ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... guilt you brought upon yourselves with a kid, and take a calf to atone for the sin you committed through a calf. But to make sure that God had become reconciled to you, offer up a bull also, and thereby acknowledge that you are slaughtering before God your idol, the bull that you had erstwhile worshipped." The people, however, said to Moses: "What avails it this nation to do homage to its king, who is invisible?" Moses replied: "For this very reason did God command you to offer these sacrifices, so that He may show Himself to you." At these words they ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG

... was, the work sold so that in six months from the time it was put on sale, Mary had received upwards of two hundred pounds in royalties. Recognition and success are hygienic. Mrs. Blood, an erstwhile friend, saw Mary about this time, and wrote to an acquaintance: "I declare if she isn't getting handsome and knows it. She has well turned thirty and has a sprinkling of gray hair and a few wrinkles, but she is doing her best ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... A Madison Avenue physician, erstwhile of Amsterdam Avenue, and more recently of two honorary degrees, his own private hospital, two outer waiting rooms, three assistants, and four-figure operations, still diverted quite a runnel of his clientele to the impeccable pharmaceutics of the little Amsterdam Avenue shop, so that ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... to die, and justice was satisfied, even if the law was marauded. There were at least four people who might have killed Fellowes without much remorse. There was Rudyard, there was Jasmine, there was Lou the erstwhile flower-girl—and himself. It was necessary that Mappin, however, should be silenced, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... better. Perhaps my erstwhile host ben Nazir had understood a little German after all. More likely he had divined Abdul Ali's purpose to make use of me. Certainly he had poured the proper poison in Anazeh's ear, and the old man understood my ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy

... ready bandanna, Lamented the loss of his eminence, sadly with sobs as follows: "Ah, why was I ever elected to the halls of legislation, So soon to be shown the door with pitiless emphasis? Truly, I've leaned on a broken Reed, and the same has gone back on me meanly. Where now is my prominence, erstwhile in council conspicuous, patent? Alas, I did never before understand what I now see clearly, To wit, that Democracy tends to level all human distinctions!" His fate so untoward and sad the Pine-tree statesman, bewailing, Stood in the corridor there while Democrats freed from ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... courtly old gentleman that he impressed me. His extreme activity for his years, his old-world manners, and his bright intelligence, were combinations one does not often meet, and would have made him an interesting figure in any assembly or country. Another day came Judge Coetzee, erstwhile Kruger's confidant and right hand, but then of a very different way of thinking to his old master. His remark on the warlike situation was as follows: "Kruger is only a white Kaffir chief, and as such respects force, ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... 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, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various

... wisps about his frightened eyes, and his hat had been "stove in" and jammed down as far as it would go until his ample ears stuck out like sails at half-mast. His feet were imbedded in the heavy mud on the margin of the water-hole, and his fine silk socks, which had showed at one time above the erstwhile neat tyings, were torn ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... magic is this name! Erstwhile it made the tyrant tremble on his throne and the hearts of the down-trodden leap for joy. Now, over the chasm of two score years, it causes the drooping hopes of freemen to bud anew, and the smoldering embers of their ambition ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... the opportunity and as the longboat was just then starting back, they were 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

... being the sovereign attestation of the reality of the Light. 'I see'; that is the proof that light has touched my eyeballs. And when a man can contrast, as some of us can, our present vision with our erstwhile darkness, then the evidence, like that of the sturdy blind man in the Gospels, who had nothing to say in reply to the subtleties and Rabbinical traps and puzzles but only 'I was blind; now I see'—his experience is likely to have the effect that it had in another miracle ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... huge canvas in front of them, before which the crowd was gathering and laughing. It was, so people said, the work of an erstwhile veterinary surgeon, and showed a number of life-size horses in a meadow, fantastic horses, blue, violet, and pink, whose astonishing anatomy transpierced ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... of thought, and the knowledge that he could eat for at least two weeks longer, the erstwhile star amateur first baseman sought the doubtful comfort ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Essie had made the situation clear to him, the patronizing manner of her erstwhile friends, the small discourtesies, the petty slights, and he found springing up within him a feeling of partisanship so vigorous as frequently to surprise himself. Were they really so ignorant, so blind, he asked himself, as to be unable to see that the girl, regardless of her occupation or antecedents, ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart

... Austria have established his reputation as a virtuoso, and the quality of his playing led Ysaye to include him in a quartet of artists "in order of lyric expression" with himself and Thibaud. Yet, the fact remains that this erstwhile protege of Queen Wilhelmina—she gave him his beautiful Santo Serafin (1730) violin, whose golden varnish back "is a genuine picture,"—to quote its owner—is a distinguished interpreting artist besides having a real teaching gift, which lends additional ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens

... Admiralty had connections at court; and between that February morning and a 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 and ridiculous," ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... parting cup! Ladies of the Canterbury, fair sharers of our hospitality who have left the triumphs of the drama to cheer the unfortunate soldier on his war-ward way, I raise my glass and drink to each Terpsichorean toe which, erstwhile, was pointed skyward amid the thunder of metropolitan plaudits, and which now demurely taps my flattered carpet. Gentlemen—soldiers and civilians—I give you three toasts! Miss Carew, Miss Lynden, Miss Trent! Long may ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers

... which, to my certain knowledge, had no more business among my belongings than the knives and plates that the conjurer snatches from the surrounding atmosphere, or the hen which he evolves, clucking, from an erstwhile empty sleeve. ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... paper bag? You push and shove—not a cup budges from its friends and relatives. Perhaps your fingers need more licking. Perhaps the cups need more "snapping." In the end you hold a handful of messed-up crumpled erstwhile cup-shaped paper containers, the first one pried off looking more like a puppy-chewed mat by the time it is loose and a chocolate planted on its middle. By then, needless to remark, the bloom is ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... in the old private chapel attached to the Deanery, we should defer the christening of Duncan the Second till "the Doctor" could perform the office—there being, of course, but one "Doctor" for all Eden Valley people—Doctor Gillespie, erstwhile Moderator of the ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... his plans. He typewrites a letter, forges the signature of the erstwhile Count, and awaits events. The fish does rise to the bait. He gets sundry bits of money, and his success makes him daring. He looks round him for an accomplice—clever, unscrupulous, greedy—and selects Mr. Edward Skinner, probably some former pal of ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy

... 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" ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower

... speech Provencal, its soul purely Celt. Laughter loving, warlike and brave in the idyllic years of their prime, the Gruyeriens of to-day are still gay, caustic of wit as they are kindly at heart; and, in a changed world, as tenacious of their new republican rights as they were erstwhile valiant vassals to their pastoral kings. The source of innumerable songs and legends in the rich and melodious Gruyere speech, still pastoral, this country has been celebrated in its exquisite, unchanging beauty by many poets; its romances and its national song have been the themes of ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven

... 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 hope ...
— Hymns from the Morningland - Being Translations, Centos and Suggestions from the Service - Books of the Holy Eastern Church • Various

... when they had got him to his knees. "Let it not be said that Sir Percevall Hart dared to tempt erect the dreadful glance of majesty. Here let him lowly bend beneath the eyes that erstwhile laid him low." ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye

... Chicago, in 1903, the game dealers reported a heavy 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

... spiritual weapon, for the Pope had no army to enforce his decisions. So Anselm, conscious of this spiritual authority, refused to bow to the lawless rule of the Red King; and his very attitude, while it encouraged men to lift up their hearts who erstwhile had felt that it was hopeless and useless to strive against William,[4] enraged the Red King ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton

... yesterday afternoon in the course of clearing out a watercress-bed near the erstwhile rural village of Sidcup in Kent; a discovery that will occasion many a disagreeable qualm to those persons who have been in the habit of regaling themselves with this refreshing esculent. But before proceeding to a description of the circumstances of the actual discovery or of the objects found—which, ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman



Words linked to "Erstwhile" :   past



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