were

From Middle English were, weren, from Old English wǣre, wǣron, wǣren, from Proto-Germanic *wēz-, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wes-. More at was.

stressed

• (UK) enPR: wûr, IPA^(key): /wɜː(ɹ)/
• (UK, regional) enPR: wâr, IPA^(key): /wɛə(ɹ)/
• (US) enPR: wûr, IPA^(key): /wɝ/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)
• Homophone: whirr (in accents with the wine-whine merger)

unstressed

• (UK) enPR: wər, IPA^(key): /wə(ɹ)/
• (US) enPR: wər, IPA^(key): /wɚ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

were

1. Second-person singular simple past tense indicative of be.

   John, you were the only person to see him.

2. First-person plural simple past tense indicative of be.

   We were about to leave.

3. Second-person plural simple past tense indicative of be.

   Mary and John, you were right.

4. Third-person plural simple past tense indicative of be.

   They were a fine group.

   They were to be the best of friends from that day on.

5. Simple imperfect subjunctive in all persons of be.

   I wish that it were Sunday.

   I wish that I were with you.

   • with "if" omitted, put first in an "if" clause:

     Were it simply that she wore a hat, I would not be upset at all. (= If it were simply...)

     Were father a king, we would have war. (= If father were a king,...)

   • 2011 November 3, David Ornstein, “Macc Tel-Aviv 1 - 2 Stoke”, in BBC Sport‎:

     Maccabi would have been out of contention were it not for Stoke's profligacy, but their fortune eventually ran out as the visitors opened the scoring.

6. (Northern England) was.

• (second-person singular past indicative, archaic) wast (used with "thou")
• (second-person singular imperfect subjunctive, archaic) wert (used with "thou")

From Middle English were, wer, from Old English wer, from Proto-Germanic *weraz, from Proto-Indo-European *wiHrós (“man”). Cognate with Latin vir (“man”). The original meaning of "man" is now preserved only in compounds like were wolf (“man-wolf”) and were gild (“man gold (payment)”).

were (plural weres)

1. (obsolete) A fine for slaying a man; weregild.
   • Bosworth

     Every man was valued at a certain sum, which was called his were.

   • 2004, James Fitzjames Stephen, A General View of the Criminal Law of England, →ISBN, page 12-13:

     The consequence of conviction was, the payment to the person injured, of a were, or penalty, proportioned to the offencel but though this was the ordinary course, the recovery of the were was not the only object of the proceedings. "The were," says Reeve, "in cases of homicide, and the fines that were paid in cases of theft of various kinds, were only to redeem the offender from the proper punishment of the law, which was death, and that was reddemable, not only by paying money, but by undergoing some personal pains; hence it is that we hear a great variety of corporal punishments..."...

2. (fandom slang) The collective name for any kind of person that changes into another form under certain conditions, including the werewolf.

• were-
• weregild
• werewolf
• world

• Ewer, ewer, ewre, rewe, weer

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eːrə

were

1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of weren

• weer

From Proto-Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian *waiʀ, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *wahiʀ.

were

1. water (clear liquid H₂O)

• Cornelis L. Voorhoeve, Languages of Irian Jaya Checklist (1975, Canberra: Pacific Linguistics)

were

1. second-person singular imperative of hatin

were

1. water

• Aone van Engelenhoven, The position of Makuva among the Austronesian languages of Southwest Maluku and East Timor, in Austronesian historical linguistics and culture history: a festschrift, Pacific linguistics 601 (2009)

From Old English wǣre (second-person singular indicative and subjunctive past of wesan).

• weer, weere, wer, wære

• IPA^(key): /ˈwɛːr(ə)/, /ˈwɛr(ə)/

were

1. Second-person singular past indicative form of been
2. Singular subjunctive past form of been

• English: were (dialectal war, ware)
• Scots: war, waar, ware, waur, wur, wir

From a conflation of Old English wǣron and Old English wǣren.

were

1. Alternative form of weren

From Old English werre, wyrre.

were

1. Alternative form of werre

were class 5 (plural mawere)

1. breast

From Proto-Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian *waiʀ, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *wahiʀ.

were

1. water (clear liquid H₂O)

were

1. smell, odor, aroma

were

1. day

• Roger Blench, The Toro language of Central Nigeria and its affinities (2012)

From Proto-Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian *waiʀ, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *wahiʀ.

were

1. water (clear liquid H₂O)