quondam en · ADJ
Pronunciation
- /ˈkwɒndəm/
- (Southern-England) audio
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin quondam. Compare whilom.
Meanings
-
(formal, not-comparable) Former; once; at one time.
However, with the dainty volume my quondam friend sprang into fame. At the same time he cast off the chrysalis of a commonplace existence.
1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:This is the quondam King; Let's ſeize vpon him.
c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i], page 158, column 1:A few hundred pages after faintly praising me […] the book’s narrator (a quondam critic with nothing nice to say about Charlie Kaufman) challenges me to a barroom argument about cinema.
2020 September 1, A. O. Scott, “‘I’m Thinking of Ending Things’ Review: Where to Begin?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:For the sleeper on the couch was not Akeley at all, but my quondam guide Noyes.
1931, H. P. Lovecraft, chapter 8, in The Whisperer in Darkness:Present him if you please in my name to [John] Henry, [William] Grayson and all our quondam acquaintances and be assured that any civilities he receives from you will be gratefully remembered by me.
1789, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney to James Madison, 28 March, in The Documentary History of the First Federal Elections 1788–1790, vol. 1, ed. Merrill Jensen and Robert A. Becker, University of Wisconsin Press, 1976, page 217
Deriveds
Synonyms
former · anterior · whilom · used-to-be · preceding · previous · past · ex · sometime · erstwhile · erstwhile · prior · foregone · precedent · hitherto · antecedent · earlier · olden · quondam · old
Translations (14)
es antiguo (former) · es otrora (former) · de einstig (former) · nb forhenværende (former) · nb tidligere (former) · ru бы́вший (former) · bg бивш (former) · de ehemalig (former) · bg някогашен (former) · es antaño (former) · de früher (former) · ka ყოფილი (former) · ca quòndam (former) · de einstmalig (former)