Word.ws English Dictionary

used-to-be

used-to-be adjective: former, ex-.

Adjective

used-to-be (not comparable)

  1. (colloquial) Former, ex-.
    • Milburn Ellis, a used-to-be resident of this place, but now of the Grasshopper Country […] is visiting relatives here.1888, Daily Evening Bulletin, Maysville, Kentucky, 3 September, 1888
    • Said it was a spittoon just like his used-to-be bossman used to have in his bank up there in Atlanta.1937, Zora Neale Hurston, chapter 5, in Their Eyes Were Watching God, University of Illinois Press, published 1978, page 76

Questions about used-to-be

What does used-to-be mean?
Used-to-be means former, ex-.
What part of speech is used-to-be?
Used-to-be is an adjective.

Words near used-to-be in the dictionary

  1. used up
  2. used-book store
  3. used-book stores
  4. used-bookstore
  5. used-bookstores
  6. used-to-be
  7. Useda
  8. usedest
  9. usedn't
  10. usedn't to
  11. usedness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: used-to-be (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “used-to-be.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/used-to-be. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.