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was

verb
/wəz/

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂wes- Proto-Germanic *was Old English wæs Middle English was English was From Middle English was, from Old English wæs, from Proto-Germanic *was, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂we-h₂wós-e from *h₂wes- (“to reside”), whence also vestal. See also Scots was, West Frisian was (dated, wie is generally preferred today), Dutch was, Low German was, German war, Swedish var); also Kamkata-viri vos-, Sanskrit उवास (uvā́sa). The paradigm of “to be” has been since the time of Proto-Germanic a synthesis of three originally distinct verb stems. The infinitive form be is from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH- (“to become”). The forms is and are are both derived from Proto-Indo-European *h₁es- (“to be”). Lastly, the past forms starting with w- such as was and were are from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wes- (“to reside”).

  1. derived from *h₂wes-✻
  2. derived from *h₁es-✻
  3. derived from *bʰuH-✻
  4. inherited from *was✻
  5. inherited from wæs
  6. inherited from was

Definitions

  1. first-person singular simple past indicative of be.

    • I was castigated and scorned.

  2. third-person singular simple past indicative of be.

    • It was a really humongous slice of cake.
    • I killed my poor father, Tuesday was a week, for doing the like of that.
    • He saw it clear enough, now that the lordling had pointed it out. “They couldn't have froze. Not if the Wall was weeping. It wasn't cold enough."

  3. Used in phrases with existential there when the semantic subject is (usually…

    Used in phrases with existential there when the semantic subject is (usually third-person) plural.

    • There was three of them there.
    • And in the vppermoſt baſket there was of all maner of †bake-meats foꝛ Pharaoh,and the birds did eat them out of the baſket vpon my head.
  4. ›+ 5 more definitions

    1. second-person singular simple past indicative of be

      second-person singular simple past indicative of be; were.

      • You was pleased to cast a favourable eye upon me.
      • "Was you outside the Bank of England, sir?"

    2. first-person plural simple past indicative of be

      first-person plural simple past indicative of be; were.

      • “What happened here, Hadley?” the chief asked. “We was robbed, damn it, we was robbed.”

    3. third-person plural simple past indicative of be

      third-person plural simple past indicative of be; were.

      • When the reflection in the glass that I held to my lips now baby / Revealed the tears that was on my face, yeah
      • Take or be taken. Get yours or get got. It was the code of the streets and I'd lived by it. The way things was looking, I was prolly gone die by it too.

    4. A surname.

    5. plural of WA

The neighborhood

Derived

wasband, wasbian, Wasrael

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for was. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA