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

See Examples For:

as it were

And by “they,” I mean Chris Stewart, who is the man behind the marble, as it were.

From Salon ● Aug. 21, 2026

But the realization dawned that Ronnie might, as it were, take the bullet for Stuart.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 1, 2026

Wells’s “Outline of History” was an attempt to wrap the whole world, as it were, in a single volume.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 17, 2026

They aimed to retain the “breathing units” of biblical speech, even if that meant straining German with Hebraic syntax; the criteria, Mendes-Flohr observes, were “not aesthetic but, as it were, respiratory.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 6, 2026

Thus, the Lumleys had made the heartbreaking decision to hide Penelope in plain sight, as it were, at the Swanburne Academy.

From "The Long-Lost Home" by Maryrose Wood