Was

How to spell was

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce was

What does was mean?

1. verbThe first and third person singular past tense of the verb 'to be'.

Was in a sentence

• The meeting was rescheduled to next Tuesday.

• She was already at her desk when the call came.

Where does was come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This tiny word is one of the oldest in English, descending directly from Old English 'wæs', the first and third person past singular of the verb 'wesan', meaning 'to be' or 'to exist'. The Old English verb came from a Proto-Germanic root meaning 'to remain' or 'to dwell', which is why related forms appear across the Germanic languages, such as German 'war' and Dutch 'was'. The verb 'to be' in English is famously patchwork, stitched together from several different old verbs, and 'was' belongs to the strand that also gave us 'were'. Because that strand never matched the present-tense forms 'am', 'is', and 'are', English ended up with one of the most irregular verbs in the language. The spelling has stayed remarkably stable for over a thousand years, even though the pronunciation softened, so the written 'was' is essentially the same word an Anglo-Saxon would have recognised.

How the word is built

• was (Old English wæs, past singular of wesan 'to be')