Forby
adj, adv, name, prep ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Uncommon; out of the ordinary; extraordinary; superior. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, archaic, dialectal
"He's a forbye man."
- 1 Past; by; beyond. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, archaic, dialectal
"To see the world and folk that went forby, […]"
- 2 Uncommonly; exceptionally. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, archaic, dialectal
"He was forby kind."
- 1 Beyond; past; more than; greater than; over and above; moreover. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, archaic, dialectal
- 2 Past; gone by; over. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, archaic, dialectal
- 3 Near; beside; by, close to. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, archaic, dialectal
"Those were the two sonnes of Acrates old / Who meeting earst with Archimago slie, / Foreby that idle strond, of him were told, / That he, wich earst them combatted, was Guyon bold."
- 4 On one side; out of the way. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, archaic, dialectal
- 5 Besides; in addition to; as well as; not to mention. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, archaic, dialectal
"There was other six forby me."
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- 6 With the exception of; not taking into account. Northern-England, Scotland, UK, archaic, dialectal
- 1 A surname.
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"To see the world and folk that went forby, […]"
Etymology
From Middle English forby, forbi, of Middle Low German or North Germanic origin, equivalent to fore- + by. Compare Saterland Frisian foarbie (“beyond, past”), West Frisian foarby (“over, beyond, past”), Dutch voorbij (“beyond, past”), Low German vörbi, vörbie (“over, up, gone, finished, past”), German vorbei (“over, gone, past”), Danish forbi, Swedish förbi. More at fore, by.
Related phrases
More for "forby"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.