Everything about Were totally explained
Were and
wer are
archaic terms for
adult male humans and were often used for
alliteration with wife as "were and wife" in Germanic-speaking cultures (Old English
were, German
Wehr, Gothic
waír, Old Frisian
wer, Old Saxon
wer, Old High German
wer, Old Norse
verr).
In
folklore and
fantasy fiction,
were- is often used as a
prefix applied to an
animal name to indicate a type of
shapeshifter (
for example "were-
boar"). Hyphenation used to be mandatory but is now commonly dropped, as in
werecat and
wererat. This usage can be seen as a
back formation from
werewolf (literally, "man-
wolf"), as there's no equivalent
wifewolf. A further back formation,
polywere, eliminates the animal root entirely.
Gothic has a word translating
kosmos derived from the same stem:
faírhvus, used by
Wulfila in alternation with
manasêþs. The corresponding West Germanic term is
werold "
world", literally
wer "man" +
ald "age". Gothic
faírhvus is cognate to Old High German
fërah, Old English
feorh, terms expressing "lifetime" .
The word has cognates in various other languages, for example, the words
vir (as in
virile) and
fear (plural
fir as in
Fir Bolg) are the Latin and Gaelic for man.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Were'.
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