Word.ws English Dictionary

whilom

Syllables: whil·om/ˈwaɪləm/US/ˈwaɪləm/

whilom adverb: at some time in the past; formerly, once upon a time.

Adverb

whilom (not comparable)

  1. (archaic except literary) At some time in the past; formerly, once upon a time.
    • Whilom, as olde stories tellen us [...]a. 1394, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Knight's Tale”, in The Canterbury Tales, line 859
    • Lo I the man, vvhoſe Muſe vvhilome did maske,
      As time her taught, in lowly Sheapards vveeds,
      Am novv enforſt a far unfitter taske, […]1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 1, page 1
  2. (obsolete) At times, on occasion, sometimes.
    • Wald ze be lov'd, this lessone mon ze leir;
      Flie vhylome Love, and it will folou thee.a. 1599 (date written), Alexander Montgomery [i.e., Alexander Montgomerie], “An Admonitioun to Zoung Lassis”, in David Irving, editor, The Poems of Alexander Montgomery: […], Edinburgh: […] James...
  3. (obsolete, rare) Preceded by of or this: for some time that has passed.
    • This money I do give ye, becauſe of vvhilom
      You have bin thought my ſonne, and by myſelfe too, […]1610–1616 (date written), Iohn [i.e., John] Fletcher, Monsieur Thomas. A Comedy. […], London: […] Thomas Harper, for Iohn Waterson, […], published 1639, →OCLC, Act IV, scene ii, signature I2, verso

Adjective

whilom (not comparable)

  1. (archaic except literary) At some time in the past; former, sometime.
    • On the same day, two notable Female Prisoners are also put in ward there: Dame Dubarry and Josephine Beauharnais! Dame whilom Countess Dubarry, Unfortunate-female, had returned from London; they snatched her, not only as Ex-harlot of a whilom Majesty, and therefore suspect; but as having 'furnished...1837, Thomas Carlyle, “Death”, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume III (The Guillotine), London: James Fraser, […], →OCLC, book V (Terror the Order of the Day), page 290
    • The play must have appeared during the closing years of the Peloponnesian war, and must have been fresh in men's memory, when, as Plutarch tells us (Life of Lysander, c. 15), the deliberations about the fate of conquered Athens were determined by a Phocian actor singing the opening monody, which...1879, J[ohn] P[entland] Mahaffy, “His Plots”, in John Richard Green, editor, Euripides (Classical Writers), London: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, paragraph 43, page 60
  2. (obsolete) Of a person: deceased, late.

Conjunction

whilom

  1. During the same time that; while.
    • Subjects their King, the King his Subjects greets,
      VVhilome the Scepter and the Plough-ſtaffe meets.1647, Theodore de la Guard [pseudonym; Nathaniel Ward], The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America. […], London: […] J[ohn] D[ever] & R[obert] I[bbitson] for Stephen Bowtell, […], →OCLC, page 77
    Synonyms:
    as, when, while, whilst
  2. Up to the time that; till, until.
    Synonyms:
    'til, till, until, unto, while

whilom meaning in Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

whilom in Urdu

ایک دفع, سابقاً

whilom in Bengali

পূর্ববর্তী, প্রাক্তন

whilom in Malayalam

whilom
പണ്ട് paṇṭŭ

Synonyms of whilom

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of whilom

Forms of whilom

alternative form (obsolete)whilome

Origin of whilom

From Middle English whilom (“(adverb) at one time, formerly, once; once upon a time; at times, sometimes; at a future time; (conjunction) while”) [and other forms], from Old English hwīlum, hwīlan, hwīlon (“at one time, once; sometimes”), from Proto-West Germanic *hwīlum, the dative plural of *hwīlu (“period of time, time, while; period of rest, pause”), from Proto-Germanic *hwīlō (“period of time, time, while; period of rest, pause”), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷyeh₁- (“to rest; peace, rest”). The Oxford English Dictionary regards adverb sense 2.2 (“for some time that has passed”) as “aberrant”. Cognates * Old High German hwīlōn (Middle High German wīlen, wīlent, German weiland (“at one time, formerly”)) * Old Saxon hwīlon (“sometimes”) (Middle Dutch wilen, Middle Low German wilen (“at one time, formerly”), Dutch wijlen (“deceased, late”))

Words that rhyme with whilom

Questions about whilom

What does whilom mean?
Whilom means at some time in the past; formerly, once upon a time.
What is whilom in Urdu?
Whilom in Urdu is ایک دفع, سابقاً. See Whilom meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is whilom?
Whilom can be an adverb, an adjective or a conjunction.
How do you pronounce whilom?
Whilom is pronounced /ˈwaɪləm/ (UK).

Words near whilom in the dictionary

  1. whillikers
  2. whilly
  3. whillying
  4. whillywha
  5. whillywhas
  6. whilom
  7. whilome
  8. whilst
  9. whim
  10. WHIM syndrome
  11. whim-wham

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: whilom (page history and authors); whilom (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); whilom (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); പണ്ട് (Malayalam) (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-whilom.wav.

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