Pylimitics

In 1903, J.M.Barrie (author of Peter Pan) wrote “The Little White Bird”, which contains this line “Whom did I see but the whilom nursery governess sitting on a chair in one of these gardens.” “Whilom,” which has pretty much vanished from use in the past century, is — or was — the past version of “while.” Technically it was the “dative plural,” if you really want to know. 

“Whilom,” like “while,” came from Old English, and that’s where the ending comes from. Old English words took different forms depending on usage. English still contains words that do that, so when you see that pattern it’s a clue to where the word originated. 

But “whilom” isn’t the only English adjective referring to the past. You might be able to guess the next one: “erstwhile.” This one is a compound created from “erst”, which was an Old English word meaning first in a series. But even though both “erst” and “while” hail from Old English, “erstwhile” is quite a bit newer, first showing up in the 1500s. Reginald Scott’s 1584 book The Discouerie of Witchcraft included it: “They..resist the truth erstwhile by them professed.” “Erstwhile” has always been a somewhat rare word, but in contrast to “whilom,” which has disappeared from use, “erstwhile” has become somewhat more common in the past century or so. 

It evidently was not enough that English inherited “whilom” from Old English and manufactured “erstwhile” out of two Old English words. There’s another word meaning “former” (and I’m not including “former”) that was imported from Latin in the 1500s: “quondam.” “Quondam” in Latin meant “former,” and came into use, like “erstwhile,” in the 1500s. William Warner wrote Albions England: A Continued Historie in 1596, and although he could have followed Reginald Scott and used “erstwhile”, he instead decided on “quondam:” “In Albanie the quondam King at eldest Daughters Court Was setled scarce, when she repynes.”

“Quondam” is also used to refer to a person who previously held a particular position or office; an outgoing financial minister, for example, would be called a “quondam.” This sense of “quondam” is in formal use in Oxford University; any former Fellow of All Souls College is officially known as a “quondam.” Although “quondam” is exceedingly rare, it’s still in use in versions of English more influenced by British rather than American sources; the South China Morning Post, used it in January, 2006: “While I have seen the civil service from the inside, I am now enough of a quondam..to be objective about its Jesuitical mystique.” In the same year, the Canadian National Post also published the word: “The future of ‘Hart House’, quondam home of the first family of professional wrestling, was secured by a new development plan.”

But wait, there are more words for “former” — and I’m still not including “former.” This one is probably the most obscure of all: “umquhile.” It’s pronounced (and sometimes spelled, when it’s spelled at all) “umwhile.” This word, like “whilom,” dates from Old English; umquhile it was “ymb hwile.” Sir Walter Scott used the word a number of times, including his 1820 book The Monastery: “The Lady of the umquhile Walter de Avenel was in very weak health in the Tower of Glendearg.” It may even be due to Scott that the word is spelled with a silent “qu” in the middle; he seems to have been the one who popularized that form. One odd thing about “umquhile” is that for a while during the late 1400s and early 1500s it was used to mean “at some later time” instead of “at a previous time.” It’s not clear quite how that happened, but it evidently faded out pretty quickly. Another thing that faded out is the word “umquhile” itself; it had vanished almost completely by 1900. 

It’s possible that the confusion about “unquhile” around 1500 was just a misuse of another very obscure word: “umbewhile.” “Umbewhile” is from Old English, and means (or meant, back when it was used at all), “later” or “after a while.” Like “umquhile”, “umbewhile” is by now entirely obsolete.

It’s possible that all these different words for “former” lost out to “former” in popularity because “former” means the same thing and is easier to say. But if you think about it, it’s not at all obvious why “former” should have anything to do with time. “Form,” after all, means the shape or visible configuration of something. It’s borrowed from the Latin “forma,” which also means “shape.” But “former” isn’t related to “form;” it comes from “fore” in the sense of “foremost;” something that came first. “Forme” without the trailing “r” used to be an English word meaning earliest in time or in series, but by about the 1400s that former form had disappeared, leaving us with the latter “former” — umquhile with “umquhile,” “erstwhile,” “quondom,” and “whilom.”