English

Alternative forms

• foreby [15th-16th c.]
• forbye

Adjective

forby ‎(comparative more forby, superlative most forby)

1. (Britain dialectal, Northern England, Scotland, archaic) Uncommon; out of the ordinary; extraordinary; superior.

   He's a forbye man.

Adverb

forby ‎(comparative more forby, superlative most forby)

1. (Britain dialectal, Northern England, Scotland, archaic) Past; by; beyond.
   • 1899, Richard Garnett, Alois Leonhard Brandl, The universal anthology:

     To see the world and folk that went forby, [...]

2. (Britain dialectal, Northern England, Scotland, archaic) Uncommonly; exceptionally.

   He was forby kind.

Preposition

forby

1. (Britain dialectal, Northern England, Scotland, archaic) Beyond; past; more than; greater than; over and above; moreover.
2. (Britain dialectal, Northern England, Scotland, archaic, of time) Past; gone by; over.
3. (Britain dialectal, Northern England, Scotland, archaic) Near; beside; by, close to.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, II.viii:

     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. (Britain dialectal, Northern England, Scotland, archaic) On one side; out of the way.
5. (Britain dialectal, Northern England, Scotland, archaic) Besides; in addition to; as well as; not to mention.

   There was other six forby me.

6. (Britain dialectal, Northern England, Scotland, archaic) With the exception of; not taking into account.

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From Old Norse fyrirbjóða

Verb

forby ‎(imperative forby, present tense forbyr, simple past forbød or forbøy or forbydde, past participle forbudt or forbydd)

1. to ban
2. to forbid
3. to prohibit

Related terms

• forbud

References

• “forby” in The Bokmål Dictionary.