weren
weren is the plural simple past of be.
Meaning of be
Verb
be (highly irregular—See conjugation table)
- Used with past participles of verbs to form the passive voice.
- The dog was saved by the boy.
- Used with present participles of verbs to form the continuous aspect.
- The woman is walking.
- Used with to-infinitives of verbs to express intent, obligation, appropriateness, or relative future occurrence.
- I am to leave tomorrow.
- Used with past participles of certain intransitive verbs to form the perfect aspect.
- He is finished.
- To tend to do, often do; marks the habitual aspect.
- Women be shoppin’! You cannot stop a woman from shoppin’!1996, David Sheffield, Barry W. Blaustein, Tom Shadyac and Steve Oedekerk, screenplay of The Nutty Professor
- To exist.
- There is just one woman in town who can help us.
Forms of weren
| alternative form | wern |
|---|---|
| alternative form (dialectal) | wurn |
Origin of weren
From Middle English weren, from Old English wǣron, plural past indicative of bēon, and wǣren, plural past subjunctive of bēon, equivalent to were + -en.
Questions about weren
- What is weren the plural simple past of?
- Weren is the plural simple past of be.
Words near weren in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: weren (page history and authors); be (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-weren.wav.
Cite this entry: “weren.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/weren. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
