ci-devant

Borrowed from French ci-devant.

ci-devant (not comparable)

1. Former, late.
   • 1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], Romance and Reality. […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], OCLC 24531354, page 262:

     Hastily Beatrice performed both her own and Emily's toilette; for what with fatigue and terror, her companion was almost powerless: still their celerity excited the praise of the ci-devant professor of the fine arts.

   • 1952, Isaac Asimov, Foundation and Empire (1974 Panther Books Ltd publication), part I: “The General”, chapter 1: ‘Search for Magicians’, page 10, ¶ 4

     The old patrician retreated noiselessly with a slow bow that was part of the ceremonious legacy left by a ci-devant aristocracy of the last century’s better days.

   • 2006, Marsha Keith Schuchard, Why Mrs Blake Cried, Pimlico 2007, p. 157:

     During art collecting tours in Italy, Townley worked with the eccentric scholar Baron d'Hancarville (ci-devant Pierre Françoise Hughes), a specialist in pornographic art […]

• Vedantic

• IPA^(key): /si.d(ə).vɑ̃/

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ci-devant

1. former
2. one-time

• ci-après
• ci-contre
• ci-dessous
• ci-dessus
• ci-inclus
• ci-joint

ci-devant m or f by sense (plural ci-devant)

1. (historical, French Revolution) former aristocrat

• “ci-devant”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.