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

With that said, Storrie’s “SNL” nomination is the voters’ way of signaling they’re down to come to the cottage, as it were.

From Salon ● Jul. 9, 2026

"It's nice to know that the connectivity to the home country, as it were, is there."

From BBC ● May 1, 2026

The game, as it were, is to get Malcolm to the party.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 9, 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

They are not in themselves ‘testimony’, equivalent to words spoken or texts written; but when we find them in the Bible, as it were orchestrated by God, they become the equivalent of testimony.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton