adv. [f. AFORE adv. + TIME (confining afore to the temporal sense).] Before in time, in former time, formerly, previously.
1535. Coverdale, Dan. vi. 10. Like as his maner was to do afore tyme. Ibid. (1611). As hee did afore time.
1857. Miss Winkworth, trans. Tauler’s Serm., xxv. 391. God … overclouds all the light in which he walked aforetime.
1880. Muirhead, Gaius, I. § 63. Neither can I marry her who has aforetime been my mother-in-law.
¶ Rarely attrib. as adj. and absol. as sb.
1839. Bailey, Festus, xix. (1848), 209. Believing not the aforetime unity Of the Divine and human.
1846. Grote, Greece (1862), I. i. 37. Fancy, which fills up the blank of the aforetime.
