| \seeduh-VAHN\ | adjective
1. French. former: used especially in reference to a retired officeholder. | | Quotes | This self-indulgent aristo, the ci-devant banker Amédé Vincent, who had expiated his villainies upon the guillotine, was known to have been successful in abstracting the bulk of his ill-gotten wealth and concealing it somewhere...
-- Baroness Emmuska Orczy, The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, 1919 | | Origin | | Ci-devant comes from the French word of the same spelling which literally means "heretofore." | |
