were
Letters
4 characters
Frequency Rank
#13,071
in German word usage
Misspellings
5
tracked variants
Confusables
20
similar word pairs
were is aGermanverb. It means: 2. Person Singular simple past des Verbs be Pronounced [wɜː]. Often confused with WR and wie.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | were |
| Language | German |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | [wɜː] |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #13,071 |
| Misspellings tracked | 5 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The German entry for were is 4 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as [wɜː]. Corpus data places it at rank #13,071 in overall German word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 5 documented wrong-spelling variants for were, with forms such as "ewre", "weer", and "werre". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "WR", "wie", "wir", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct German form is were, spelled W-E-R-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 12. Person Singular simple past des Verbs be
- 21. Person Plural simple past des Verbs be
- 32. Person Plural simple past des Verbs be
- 43. Person Plural simple past des Verbs be
- 51. Person Singular past subjunctive des Verbs be
- 62. Person Singular past subjunctive des Verbs be
- 73. Person Singular past subjunctive des Verbs be
- 81. Person Plural past subjunctive des Verbs be
- 92. Person Plural past subjunctive des Verbs be
- 103. Person Plural past subjunctive des Verbs be
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ewre,weer,werre,wree,wwere
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for were
Misspelling Variants of "were"
Frequency rank: #13,071 in German
Frequently Asked Questions
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Nearby German words
Other entries that begin with the letter W in our German index: