Wer
noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A man; a male; a husband historical, obsolete
"[…]the character of a horseman was inseparable connected with the knight—the military attendant of the baron, who was himself nothing more than the Wer, or Man, of the king—even the armiger, […]"
- 2 Initialism of word error rate. abbreviation, alt-of, initialism
- 3 A fine for slaying a man; wergeld. historical, obsolete
"Under the system of money compensation, the kindred of the slain must demand payment of the wer, or prosecute the feud. They had the right to the wer when paid, and must by oath release the slayer and his kindred from the feud."
- 1 Eye dialect spelling of were. alt-of, pronunciation-spelling
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"[…]the character of a horseman was inseparable connected with the knight—the military attendant of the baron, who was himself nothing more than the Wer, or Man, of the king—even the armiger, […]"
Etymology
From Middle English wer, were, from Old English wer (“man”), from Proto-West Germanic *wer, from Proto-Germanic *weraz, from Proto-Indo-European *wiHrós (“man, freeman”). Cognate with Middle High German wër (“man”), Swedish värbror (“brother-in-law”), Norwegian verfader (“father-in-law”), Latin vir (“man, husband”), Old Irish fer, Middle Welsh gwr. The original meaning of “man” is now preserved only in compounds like werewolf, were wolf (“man-wolf”) and wergeld, were gild (“man gold (payment)”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.