Definition of "then"
then
adverb
not comparable
(temporal location) At that time.
Quotations
In the old days, to my commonplace and unobserving mind, he gave no evidences of genius whatsoever. He never read me any of his manuscripts, […], and therefore my lack of detection of his promise may in some degree be pardoned. But he had then none of the oddities and mannerisms which I hold to be inseparable from genius, and which struck my attention in after days when I came in contact with the Celebrity.
1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
(temporal location) Soon afterward.
Quotations
Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand. We spent consider'ble money getting 'em reset, and then a swordfish got into the pound and tore the nets all to slathers, right in the middle of the squiteague season.
1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
(sequence) Next in order of place.
Quotations
Then came a maid with hand-bag and shawls, and after her a tall young lady. She stood for a moment holding her skirt above the grimy steps, with something of the stately pose which Richter has given his Queen Louise on the stairway, and the light of the reflector fell full upon her.
1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
Imagine a country where children do nothing but play until they start compulsory schooling at age seven. Then, without exception, they attend comprehensives until the age of 16. Charging school fees is illegal, and so is sorting pupils into ability groups by streaming or setting.
2013 July 19, Peter Wilby, “Finland spreads word on schools”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 30
Quotations
Another legend says that now and again in the world's history a monarch appears who conquers and rules every nation under the sun. […] Then many of the Siamese believe that the animal is inhabited by the soul of some great man of the past […]
1908, E Young, “Chapter 17 White elephants”, in Peeps at Many Lands: Siam, London: Adam and Charles Black, page 75
Quotations
adjective
not comparable
Quotations
He had met his then girlfriend when he had just started university. The relationship ended unhappily when the girlfriend complained that he never wanted to go out.
2011, Alessandra Lemma, Mary Target, Peter Fonagy, Brief Dynamic Interpersonal Therapy: A Clinician's Guide, page 124
conjunction
Quotations
And as a Pible caſt into a Spring, / Wee ſee a ſort of trembling cirkles riſe, / One forming other in theyr iſſuing / Till ouer all the Fount they circulize, / So this perpetuall-motion-making kiſſe, / Is propagate through all my faculties, / And makes my breaſt an endleſſe Fount of bliſſe, / Of which, if Gods could drink, theyr matchleſſe fare / Would make them much more bleſſed then they are.
1595, Ouids Banquet of Sence. A Coronet for his Miſtreſſe Philoſophie, and his amorous Zodiacke. VVith a tranſlation of a Latine coppie, written by a Fryer, Anno Dom. 1400, London: I. R. for Richard Smith
Clow[ne]. O they haue lyud long on the almſbaſket of wordes. I maruaile thy M.hath not eaten thee for a worde, for thou art not ſo long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus: Thou art eaſier ſwallowed then a flapdragon.
c. 1595–1596 (date written), W. Shakespere [i.e., William Shakespeare], A Pleasant Conceited Comedie Called, Loues Labors Lost. […] (First Quarto), London: […] W[illiam] W[hite] for Cut[h]bert Burby, published 1598; republished as Shakspere’s Loves Labours Lost (Shakspere-Quarto Facsimiles; no. 5), London: W[illiam] Griggs, […], [Act V, scene i]