Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. Second person singular and plural and first and third person plural past indicative of be.
- v. Past subjunctive of be. See Usage Notes at if, wish.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. An obsolete form of wear 1, wear, weir, war, vair.
- n. See wer.
- n. Indicative plural and subjunctive singular and plural of was. See was.
Wiktionary
- v. Second-person singular simple past tense indicative of be.
- v. First-person plural simple past tense indicative of be.
- v. Second-person plural simple past tense indicative of be.
- v. Third-person plural simple past tense indicative of be.
- v. Simple imperfect subjunctive in all persons of be.
- v. Northern England was.
- n. archaic man (human male), as in werewolf ("man-wolf").
- n. obsolete A fine for slaying a man; weregild.
- n. The collective name for any kind of person that changes into another form under certain conditions, including the werewolf.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To wear. See 3d wear.
- n. obsolete A weir. See weir.
- v. obsolete To guard; to protect.
- The imperfect indicative plural, and imperfect subjunctive singular and plural, of the verb
be . See be. - n. obsolete A man.
- n. obsolete A fine for slaying a man; the money value set upon a man's life; weregild.
Etymologies
- Old English wer, from Proto-Germanic *weraz, from Proto-Indo-European *wiHrós (“man”). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English were, weren, from Old English wǣre, wǣren, wǣron; see wes-1 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Atsiko, those books were all published by big houses, so by definition, they *were* ready for publication.”
““What were they thinking?” has become something of a cliche, but honestly, what * were* they thinking?”
“This straw man argument - evidently based upon whether the detainees were captured on the battlefield - deliberately obscures the fact that they *were* affiliated and thus a part of AQ and/or the Taliban.”
Feeling the strain of that 1-year time limit imposed — showily imposed — on Guantanamo.
“They were better when they *were* Apple Computer, but it all went to their heads or some body part after the iPod and iPhone.”
Bad Apple: An Argument Against Buying An iPhone | Lifehacker Australia
“Right there on the Duke campus, an awful lot of the people I saw were college-aged, and I realized that these kids, these eighteen-, twenty-year-old kids are the ones who probably starting reading the series ten years ago when they *were* children.”
“If you, gentle reader, were to google ray kowalski cock -- not that I'm saying you *would* do that, or question your motives for doing so in any way -- but if you *were* to do that, the first two links to appear would be stories of mine.”
sometimes he'll twitch for no reason, it's just a twitch but it's part of his style
“My own Germanic-only substitutes for "universal" would be "all-spanning" if cosmic space were not implied from the context, and perhaps "every-worldly" if that meaning *were* implied.”
“It was July and the hives were full of decanting honey and the _tomeguines _were in full bloom in the fields and on the floor of the pine forests.”
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
“I thought you were keeping in contact and telling me the things you were because you honestly loved me and needed time to take care of yourself, so you could give us the chance the same chance I gave you at some point.”
“What an absurdity were it, if in the body natural _all were an eye_, or _hand_! for _where_ then _were the hearing, smelling_, &c.; _or if all were one member, where were the body_?”
The Divine Right of Church Government by Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘were’.
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*e?e
Words whose last and third-to-last letters are both "e".
here, eke, were, complete, mete, replete, adhere, where, mere, sphere, austere, aesthete and 99 more...
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EN - Glasgow stop list
Words to be replaced by a paragraph mark if you are after terms and MWEs.
yours, yourself, yet, your, without, you, within, will, yourselves, would, why, with and 291 more...
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Words That Can Be Typed Entirely With...
Words made of the following: qwertasdfgzxcvb. I've stood on the shoulders of giants... users mollusque and reesetee made similar lists before I even existed on Wordnik. :)
stewardesses, red tea, waves, axes, wrest, qat, waver, created, dressed, stress, crater, vexes and 50 more...
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Keyboard Hopscotch
You may start on any key. You may repeat a character, or travel to an adjacent key on the keyboard. On my qwerty keyboard, I may follow s with w, e, d, x, z, a, or (repeating) s. (If you use az...
assert, weeds, trews, treed, sewer, sewed, seeds, sawer, sawed, reeds, erred, asses and 65 more...
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Resident Pipsiculturalist Makes Huge ...
See comments on pipsiculture and homosexuality, which have nothing to do with each other except that I read comments on them at around the same time on the same day.
See also the list ...heterosexuality, homosexuality, agriculture, argumentative, that, article, thus, make, do, the, interesting, like and 106 more...
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Bébé to Zeze
A more narrow version of *e?e by pterodactyl, this one is ?e?e.
nese, were, rete, tele, sene, deme, dere, meme, rese, here, jefe, rede and 131 more...
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State-of-being verbs
Verbs that establish or connect to the status (condition, state of being, the way something is) of someone or something.
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aparrish's Words
the, this, and, a, that, i, me, you, him, her, she, he and 96 more...
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The things they carried (List 2)
Listening to this as an audio book for the second time. Tim O'Brien uses simple words and phrases to great effect. Very few unfamilar and big words . The writing style reminds me of words from Joh...
The, Things, They, Carried, meant, fond, By necessity,, presented to him, far beyond, against the brick..., reaching, taut and 2940 more...
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US - national anthem vocabulary
All words and phrases (except the most common articles and prepositions)
For a word frequency analysis see:
air, band, foe, beam, blest, God, banner, battle, battle's~confusion, blood, blow, bomb and 174 more... -
left-handed
words that are typed only with my left hand
ward, stew, war, tar, star, stewardess, steward, daft, art, dart, wart, fart and 46 more...
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logophilia
caterwauling, brustling, pugnozzle, gruntle, gift horse, moonling, vampirarchy, salmagundi, powder-monkey, argh, scuppers, macellarious and 10 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for were.
GHibbs [[I would be interested to know how the word 'modal' fits into what is said above.
The 'modal' uses "as if it were a ..., if it were ..." are the ones that I have in mind.
Thank you]] Dec 9, 2011