Definitions

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

  • adjective Former.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Former; late; ex-: applied to a person with reference to an office or a position which he no longer occupies.

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

  • adjective Former; previous; of times gone by.

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

  • adjective Former, late; formerly.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French : ci, here + devant, before.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French ci-devant.

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Examples

  • Peculiar things have been happening to the thread dedicated to the ci-devant Attorney General, which was opened yesterday, was inaccessible for most of today, reappeared and has now vanished for good.

    Tony Blair: The Next Labour Prime Minister? 2010

  • J'ignore également si quelqu'un de ceux dont j'ai fait mention ci-devant, auroit composé quelque autre ouvrage sur le même sujet.

    The Creation of Color in Eighteenth-Century Europe 2006

  • Tall ci-devant Count d'Estaing, anxious to show himself Patriot, cannot escape; nor Bailly, who, when asked If he knows the Accused, answers with a reverent inclination towards her, 'Ah, yes, I know Madame'.

    "Trial of Marie-Antoinette." by Thomas Carlyle de Brantigny........................ 2007

  • Amelie de Chandour posed as the rival queen of Angouleme; her husband, M. de Chandour, known in the circle as Stanislas, was a ci-devant young man, slim still at five-and-forty, with a countenance like a sieve.

    Two Poets 2007

  • Tall ci-devant Count d'Estaing, anxious to show himself Patriot, cannot escape; nor Bailly, who, when asked If he knows the Accused, answers with a reverent inclination towards her, 'Ah, yes, I know Madame'.

    Archive 2007-08-19 de Brantigny........................ 2007

  • Amelie de Chandour posed as the rival queen of Angouleme; her husband, M. de Chandour, known in the circle as Stanislas, was a ci-devant young man, slim still at five-and-forty, with a countenance like a sieve.

    Two Poets 2007

  • Serizy, who became through his wife the brother-inlaw of the ci-devant Marquis de Rouvre, made count and chamberlain by the

    A Start in Life 2007

  • Politically, he protected the ci-devant nobles, and prevented, to the extent of his power, the sale of the lands and property of the emigres; commercially, he furnished the Republican armies with two or three thousand puncheons of white wine, and took his pay in splendid fields belonging to a community of women whose lands had been reserved for the last lot.

    Eug�nie Grandet 2007

  • Very shortly the carriage rolled over the paved road of Tours, over the bridge, along the Grande – Rue, and stopped at last before the old mansion of the ci-devant Marquise de

    A Woman of Thirty 2007

  • The cooking world was large enough to hold Kitchener and the ci-devant chef to the most Christian King Louis XVI. and the Right Honourable the

    Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine 2006

Comments

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  • The words found under "same context" are fantastic:

    67-year-old

    abstinent

    arvernian

    be-ribboned

    chid

    crutched

    curmudgeonly

    ever-popular

    ever-youthful

    gray-uniformed

    moire

    n'est-ce

    natural-born

    nursemaid

    pro-german

    rebuffingthe

    shrivelled-up

    unfrocked

    vivant

    yellow-bearded

    your

    December 13, 2018