adv. Now formal. [ME. þer tofore: see THERE 17 and TOFORE adv.] Before that time; previously to that.
c. 1350. Will. Palerne, 2611. Þei … wist þat þai in wast wrouȝt þer to-fore.
1430–40. Lydg., Bochas, VIII. i. (MS. Bodl. 263), 368/2. Emperors reknid for ther toforn was non.
1791. in Picton, L’pool Munic. Rec. (1886), II. 205. The By-laws theretofore made.
1851. Gladstone, Glean. (1879), VI. 4. A judgment that alienated dissenting endowments from purposes to which they had theretofore been applied.
1894. State Trials (N.S.), VI. 410. According to the canonical practice theretofore observed in England.
