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

It can't hold the world to ransom, as it were.

From BBC • Apr. 28, 2026

And whatever their failures are, that ends up being their ruling attribute to their poker game, as it were.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 15, 2026

After years at war – or performing military service as it were – they’re back to pick up where they left off with their lives, music and fans.

From Salon • Mar. 27, 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

‘It don’t seem to matter what I think about them. They are quite different from what I expected — so old and young, and so gay and sad, as it were.’

From "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R. Tolkien