# former

Pronunciation: US say "FOR-mur" /ˈfɔɹmɚ/; UK say "FAW-muh" /ˈfɔːmə/

## Adjective

1. Belonging to or occurring at an earlier time; previous.
   - Simple: Happening or true at an earlier time, but not now.
   - _The committee honored its former chairman at the annual dinner._
   - _Several former colleagues attended the reunion downtown._
2. Denoting the first of two people or things just mentioned, in contrast to the second (the latter).
   - Simple: The first of two things just mentioned, not the second.
   - _Faced with honesty or flattery, most people respect the former._
   - _The report compared the old and new systems and recommended the former._

## Noun

3. A pupil belonging to a particular form, or year group, in a British school. *(British)*
   - Simple: A student in a certain class or year at school.
   - _Sixth formers usually choose three or four subjects to study._
   - _As a fifth former, she captained the school netball team._

## Noun

4. A person who forms, makes, or creates something; a maker, creator, or founder. *(rare)*
   - Simple: A person who makes, shapes, or creates something.

## Other meanings

- (noun) A tool, template, or shaped object used to give material a desired shape, such as a gauge or cutting die.

## Origin

**Meanings 1–2** — "Former" comes from Middle English "former," the comparative of "forme" ("first"), from Old English "forma" ("first") and Proto-Germanic *frumô. It shares a Proto-Indo-European root with "prior" and is related to "first" and "fore" (and thus "before").
**Meanings 3–4** — This sense comes from Middle English "formere," analysable as "form" plus the suffix "-er."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/former (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).