- 1昔日的；從前的（書面）
Erstwhile means “former” or “in the past”: an erstwhile colleague, an erstwhile home, an erstwhile friend. In current English it is almost only an adjective, and it sounds literary or newspaper-stylish — a little old, a little . People reach for it when they want “ex-” or “former” with a raised : that job, that title, that friendship is over. You would not use it as a time phrase in ordinary speech. It does not mean “for a while” and it does not mean “a while ago”. An erstwhile friend is an ex-friend, not a friend you have only known for a little while.
core核心畫面
組成erst (“formerly, in the old days”) + while (“a stretch of time”).
同家族的字
- erstan old English word meaning formerly; it is the first half
- whilethe second half is the ordinary word while, a stretch of time
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
erstwhileadv/ˈɜː(ɹ)st.waɪl/
- 1
formalliteraryFormerly; in the past.
erstwhileadj/ˈɜː(ɹ)st.waɪl/
- 1
literarylawFormer, previous.
- “Scarcely had Alice reached her twentieth birthday, than she gave her erstwhile fiancée^([sic]) his formal congé.[…]”
- As an aftermath of the erstwhile competition between companies, 41 goods depots served the Liverpool and Birkenhead docks in 1923.
- 2
Respected, honourable.
- If you're for one of my erstwhile opponents, that's O.K. Just don't work too hard.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。