O.E.
onforan, from phrase
on foran, from
on (prep) +
foran (adv.) "in front," dative of
for (q.v.). In some cases probably it represents O.E.
ætforan "at-fore." Once the literary equivalent of
before, now it has mostly been replaced by that word except in nautical use and in combinations such as
aforesaid (1418) and
aforethought (1581), which apparently is a loan-translation of O.Fr. legal word
prepense in
malice prepense "malice aforethought" (Coke).
[uh-fawr, uh-fohr] 
