Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see as, it, were.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: not-comparable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
Used to indicate that a word or statement is perhaps not exact though practically right; as if it were so.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: not-comparable
Examples
- With so much construction and renovation going on all around him, he was more or less living in a new city now, as it were. [His city is not newly founded, and it has been neither renamed nor moved, but in some practical way it is true that he does not live in the same city that he used to live in.]
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: if you will, in a manner of speaking, so to speak
Antonyms: none provided
Used to draw attention to the use of a metaphor, sometimes to prevent confusion or to highlight wordplay.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: not-comparable
Examples
- She gave all of the women seated at the restaurant food for thought, as it were.
- Concerns that cloud seeding might “steal” water from an area a cloud is traveling toward—robbing Peter to water Paul, as it were—have been dispelled.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: figuratively, if you will, metaphorically, so to speak
Antonyms: none provided
as if it were really so
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
Examples
- she lives here, as it were
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: so to speak
Antonyms: none provided
From Middle English as it were, as hyt were, als it were, als hit were, from Old English *ealswā hit wǣre, attested only as swā hit wǣre and swylċe hit wǣre (“as it were”, literally “as it would be”). Compare Dutch als het ware.
Across languages
Translations
33 source translations are retained for this English entry.
-
Afrikaans:
as't ware
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Chinese Mandarin:
可說 /可说
(kěshuō)
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Chinese Mandarin:
好像
(hǎoxiàng)
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Czech:
jakoby
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Danish:
så at sige
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Dutch:
als het ware
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Finnish:
niin sanotusti
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
French:
pour ainsi dire
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Georgian:
ასე ვთქვათ
(ase vtkvat)
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
German:
gewissermaßen
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
German:
gleichsam
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
German:
sozusagen
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Hungarian:
mintha
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Hungarian:
mintegy
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Hungarian:
kvázi
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Latin:
ut ita dicam
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Lithuanian:
lyg
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Lithuanian:
tarytum
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Low German:
as dat weer
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Macedonian:
што се вика
(što se vika)
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Māori:
ētia
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Norwegian:
mer eller mindre
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Polish:
niejako
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Portuguese:
por assim dizer
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Portuguese:
digamos assim
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Russian:
так сказа́ть
(tak skazátʹ)
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Scottish Gaelic:
mar gum biodh
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Serbo-Croatian:
малтене
(maltene)
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Swedish:
typ
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Swedish:
så att säga
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Swedish:
liksom
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Welsh:
fel petai
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
-
Yiddish:
כּבֿיכול
— to indicate a word or statement is not exact
