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'{{Short description|Archaic term for an adult male human}} {{italic title}} {{otheruses}} {{for|the Ohio radio station|WERE}} {{Wiktionary|wer#English}} '''''Were''''' and '''''wer''''' are [[archaism|archaic]] terms for [[adult]] [[male]] [[human]]s and were often used for [[alliteration]] with wife as "were and wife" in Germanic-speaking cultures<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Rauer |first1=Christine |title=Mann and Gender in Old English Prose: A Pilot Study |journal=Neophilologus |date=January 2017 |volume=101 |issue=1 |pages=139–158 |doi=10.1007/s11061-016-9489-1|hdl=10023/8978 |s2cid=55817181 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> ({{lang-ang|wer}}, {{lang-odt|wer}}, {{lang-got|waír}}, {{lang-ofs|wer}}, {{lang-osx|wer}}, {{lang-goh|wer}}, {{lang-non|verr}}). In [[Anglo-Saxon law]] ''wer'' was the value of a man's life. He could be required to pay his ''wer'' to the king as a penalty for crime.<ref>{{cite book |last=Molyneaux|first=George|title=The Formation of the English Kingdom in the Tenth Century|page=72|year=2015|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford, UK|isbn=978-0-19-871791-1}}</ref> If he was murdered then his relatives were entitled to his [[wergild]] as compensation from the murderer. Were is my big pussy ==Etymology and usage== {{Wiktionary|Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/weraz}} The word has cognates in various other languages, for example, [[Latin]] ''{{lang|la|vir}}'' (as in [[virility]]) and [[Irish language|Gaelic]] ''{{lang|ga|fear}}'' (plural ''{{lang|ga|fir}}'' as in [[Fir Bolg]]) both mean a male human. It is likely that ''wer'' forms part of a compound word in ''[[werewolf]]'' (man-[[wolf]]), although there are other proposed etymologies.<ref>Concise OED, entry "werewolf"</ref> In [[folklore]] and [[fantasy]] [[fiction]], ''were-'' is often [[affix|prefixed]] to an [[animal]] name to indicate a [[therianthropic]] figure or [[shapeshifting|shapeshifter]] (''e.g.'' "were-[[boar]]"). Hyphenation used to be mandatory, but is now commonly dropped, as in [[werecat]] and [[wererat]]. There is no attested counterpart ''wifwylf'' or ''wyfwylf'' . ==See also== * [[List of common false etymologies of English words#Other]] for a longer discussion of wer, wyf, and mann * [[Man (word)]] * For shapeshifters: ** [[Cynanthropy]] ** [[Lycanthropy (disambiguation)]] ** [[Mannaz]] ** [[Skin-walker]] ** [[Therianthropy]] ** [[Werecat]] ** [[Werehyena]] ** [[Were-jaguar]] ** [[Wererat]] ** [[Werewolf]] ==References== {{reflist}} [[Category:Etymologies]] [[Category:English words]]'