Was or were?
Both are forms of be: was is the first-person singular simple past indicative of be, and were the second-person singular simple past indicative of be. On its own, was is a verb meaning “Used in phrases with existential there when the semantic subject is…”, and were a verb meaning “simple subjunctive of be”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) was is about 3.0 times as common as were.
What is the difference between was and were?
| was | were | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb, noun | verb, noun, prefix |
| Meaning | colloquialUsed in phrases with existential there when the semantic subject is (usually third-person) plural | simple subjunctive of be Prefixed to animal names to indicate a human that shapeshifts into that animal |
| Example | I was castigated and scorned | John, you were the only person to see him |
| Pronunciation | /wəz/ /wɒz/ /wʌz/ | /wə(ɹ)/ /wɜː/ /wɛː/ |
| In writing | 6,607 times per million words | 2,188 times per million words |
Sources: was and were in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of was and were
was
- 1
colloquialUsed in phrases with existential there when the semantic subject is (usually third-person) plural
There was three of them there
were
- 1
simple subjunctive of be
I wish that it were Sunday
- 2
Alternative form of wer (“man; wergeld”)
- 3
slangThe collective name for any kind of person that changes into another form under certain conditions, including the werewolf
- 4
Prefixed to animal names to indicate a human that shapeshifts into that animal
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, was or were?
was appears 6,607 times per million words; were 2,188 times per million words.
was 6,607 times per million wordswere 2,188 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search was vs were?
“was vs were” is searched about 5,400 times a month on Google and 290 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“were vs was”, “was or were”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.