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whilom (HWAI-luhm, WAI-luhm) - (arch.) adv., at one time, formerly. (lit.) adj., former, erstwhile, quondam.
Archaic, but in use in the first part of the last century and it still shows up in historical fiction with Victorian sensibilities. This dates back to Old English hwīlum, at times, an adverbial use of the dative plural of hwīl, the ancestor of while but also at the time a noun meaning time. Around the time the language lost the full array of Germanic inflections, in Middle English, it became an adjective with a meaning shifted to deceased, before finally taking on the modern one in the 19th century.
---L.
Archaic, but in use in the first part of the last century and it still shows up in historical fiction with Victorian sensibilities. This dates back to Old English hwīlum, at times, an adverbial use of the dative plural of hwīl, the ancestor of while but also at the time a noun meaning time. Around the time the language lost the full array of Germanic inflections, in Middle English, it became an adjective with a meaning shifted to deceased, before finally taking on the modern one in the 19th century.
---L.
