_before_. It is supposed to be a
corruption of _ere_: as, "I was set up from everlasting, from the
beginning, _or ever_ the earth was."--_Prov._, viii, 23. "And we, _or ever_
he come near, are ready to kill him."--_Acts_, xxiii, 15. This term derives
no support from the original text.

OBS. 5.--There are some peculiar phrases, or combinations of words, which
have the force of conjunctions, and which it is not very easy to analyze
satisfactorily in parsing: as, "And _for all_ there were so many, yet was
not the net broken."--_John_, xxi, 11. Here _for all_ is equivalent to
_although_, or _notwithstanding_; either of which words would have been
more elegant. _Nevertheless_ is composed of three words, and is usually
reckoned a conjunctive adverb; but it might as well be called a disjunctive
conjunction, for it is obviously equivalent to _yet, but_, or
_notwithstanding_; as, "I am crucified with Christ: _nevertheless_ I live;
_yet not_ I, _but_ Christ liveth in me."--_Gal._, ii, 20. Here, for
_nevertheless_ and _but_, we have in the Greek the same particle [Greek:
de]. "Each man's mind has some peculiarity, _as well as_ his
face."--_Locke_. "Relative pronouns, _as well as_ conjunctions, serve to
connect sentences."--_Murray's Gram._, p. 124. Here the first _as_
corresponds to the second, but _well_ not being used in the literal sense
of an adverb, some judicious grammarians take the whole phrase as a
conjunction. It is, however, susceptible of division: as, "It is adorned
with admirable pieces of sculpture, _as well_ modern _as_
ancient."--_Addison_.

OBS. 6.--So the phrases, _for as much as, in as much as, in so much that_,
if taken collectively, have the nature of conjunctions; yet they contain
within themselves correspondent terms and several different parts of
speech. The words are sometimes printed separately, and sometimes partly
together. Of late years, _forasmuch, inasmuch, insomuch_, have been usually
compounded, and called adverbs. They might as well, perhaps, be called
conjunctions, as they were by some of our old grammarians; for two
conjunctions sometimes come together: as, "Answering their questions, _as
if_[314] it were a matter that needed it."--_Locke_. "These should be at
first gently treated, _as though_ we expected an imposthumation,"--_Sharp_.
"But there are many things which we must acknowledge to be true,
_notwithstanding that_ we cannot comprehend them."--_Beattie's Moral
Science_, p. 211. "There is