Word of the Day Archive
Tuesday April 9, 2002
quondam \KWAHN-duhm; KWAHN-dam\ , adjective:
Having been formerly; former; sometime.
A quondam flower child, she spent seven years at the Royal College of Art, before becoming a lecturer at Edinburgh School of Art.
-- "Interview: Cool, calm collector", Independent, December 13, 1997
For the unregenerate "peasant" . . . had gone there with the successful glass distributor, shrewd investor, versatile talker, and quondam bon vivant whose motto was "The best is good enough for me."
-- Ted Solotaroff, Truth Comes in Blows: A Memoir
There was an exception to this in the form of Mrs Edna Parsons, a formidable Englishwoman who had once been the Prince's nanny and now served as proctor, supervising his behaviour. She was about fifty and true to her quondam profession, she could be quite strict.
-- David Freeman, One of Us
Quondam comes from the Latin quondam, "formerly," from quom, "when."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for quondam
