as it were

Idioms  

1. Seemingly, in a way, as in He was living in a dream world, as it were. A shortening of “as if it were so,” this idiom has been in use since Chaucer's time (he had it in his Nun's Priest's Tale, c. 1386). Also see so to speak.

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Example Sentences

This taxonomical lumping together—this mass Hinduization, as it were—would have profound political consequences.

From The Wall Street Journal

"I wrote him a letter, before they started, passing the baton as it were," he said.

From BBC

“What a fine day for a group of strangers with no prior knowledge of each other to meet by chance on the garden path, as it were.”

From Literature

Within minutes of waking, the tangle of problems that had flummoxed Penelope so thoroughly the previous evening had somehow sorted themselves into neat skeins of wool, as it were.

From Literature

But Mr. Sachs instead sticks to the script, as it were, delivering something in the “My Dinner With Andre” tradition of two people simply talking to each other.

From The Wall Street Journal