Word Confusion: Ware vs Wear vs Were vs Where

Plural for the noun: wares
Gerund: waring

Third person present verb: wares
Past tense or past participle: wared
Present participle: waring

Plural for the noun: wears
Gerund: wearing

Third person present verb: wears
Past tense: wore
Past participle: worn ¹ or wore ²
Present participle: wearing

Plural for the noun: weres
Third person present verb: are
Past tense or past participle: was / were
Present participle: being

Plural for the noun: where

Watchful, wary, or cautious

Combined Form:
Denoting articles made of ceramic or used in cooking and serving food ²

Denoting a kind of software

Noun:
Pottery, usually of a specific type ²

Articles offered for sale

• A specified kind or class of merchandise or of manufactured article (usually used in combination)

[Archaeology] A group of ceramic types classified according to paste and texture, surface modification, as burnish or glaze, and decorative motifs rather than shape and color

Verb, transitive:
Usually used in the imperative

• To beware of

[Scottish and North England] To spend ⁴

Expend

The first season in the year ⁵

Spring

The state of being worn as clothing

Clothing suitable for a particular purpose

Damage or deterioration sustained from continuous use

Capacity for withstanding continuous use

Verb, complement:
Damage, erode, or destroy by friction or use ¹

• Undergo damage, erosion, or destruction by friction or use

Verb, intransitive:
[wear on] Cause weariness or fatigue to withstand continued use or life in a specified way ¹

[Of a period of time; wear on] Pass, especially slowly or tediously

Verb, transitive:
Have on one’s body or a part of one’s body as clothing, decoration, protection, or for some other purpose ¹

• Habitually have on one’s body or be dressed in
• Exhibit or present a particular facial expression or appearance
• Have one’s hair or beard at a specified length or arranged in a specified style
• [Of a ship] Fly a flag

Damage, erode, or destroy by friction or use

• Form a hole, path, etc., by constant friction or use
• [British; informal; usually with negative] Tolerate

• Accept

[Sailing] Bring a ship about by turning its head away from the wind ²

[Fandom slang] The collective name for any kind of person that changes into another form under certain conditions, including the werewolf

• [Archaic] Werewolf, as in man-wolf

A style of artwork that involves anthropomorphic creatures in an often digitrade form

WW:tA gamers

Roleplayers who want to fit into a community to feel “speshul”

A military force, a band of troops

(Also wered and wering)

Prefix:
Most commonly used with animal names to indicate a person who changes shape into that animal ²

Verb:
Were cannot be used as a contraction ³:
As the plural past-tense form of are, were is never used in a contraction.

CAUTION: We’re is the contraction for we are, and the same applies to you’re meaning you are, and they’re is they are.

Be present

[With adverbial] Occur

• Take place
• Occupy a position in space
• Stay in the same place or condition
• Attend
• Come
• Go
• Visit

[Informal] Say

Verb, auxiliary:
Used with a present participle to form continuous tenses ³

Used with a past participle to form the passive mood

[With infinitive] Used to indicate something due to happen

• Used to express obligation or necessity
• Used to express possibility
• Used to hypothesize about something that might happen

[Archaic] Used with the past participle of intransitive verbs to form perfect tenses

Verb, linking:
Having the state, quality, identity, nature, role, etc., specified ³

• Cost
• Amount to
• Represent
• Signify
• Consist of
• Constitute

• In what direction or respect
• In or from what source
• In or to what situation or condition

Adverb, relative:
At, in, or to which (used after reference to a place or situation)

The place or situation in which

• In or to a place or situation in which
• In or to any place in which
• Wherever

Conjunction:
[Informal] That

Whereas

Noun:
The place

The scene of something

Pronoun:
What place?

The place in which

Point at which

Combined Form:
Missy got a nice set of tableware at her bridal shower.

I need some new bakeware.

Check out this shareware.

This new groupware we got streamlines the workload.

I hate spyware.

Have you been to the warehouse yet?

Noun:
Some collect majolica ware.

Sellers at the flea market display their wares.

Mary, can you set the silverware around the table?

You can’t go wrong with glassware as a wedding gift.

Verb:
Ware the ghosts of Christmas past!

Have you any sportswear?

There’s not a lot of wear on these shoes.

Verb, complement:
The track has been worn down in part to bare rock.

The mountains are wearing down with each passing second.

Verb, intransitive:
Some losses can wear on you.

There aren’t many carpet-type finishes that wear well.

As the afternoon wore on, he began to look unhappy.

Verb, transitive:
He was wearing a dark suit.

Both ladies wore a bunch of violets.

Although she was a widow, she didn’t wear black.

They wear a frozen smile on their faces.

The students wore their hair long.

The pirate ship wore a Venezuelan flag.

The water was forced up through holes it had worn.

The environmental health people wouldn’t wear it.

Wearing half the day, they spun long tales.

The captain gave orders to wear ship.

There are some awesome were artists out there, but don’t they draw anything else?

Hey, look, another self-proclaimed were has found their way to the boards.

Didn’t you know that Jake was a were?

Prefix:
He turns into a werewolf.

The weregild will be high for a mother and child.

I wonder what size werebear he turns into?

Verb:
Were there any castles in this area?

There were no easy answers.

There were no curtains around the showers.

If the exhibition were in November, I could attend.

We were here.

They were headed over to the theatre.

Most of us were hungover.

If I were you . . .

Weren’t you at the game last night?

We were coming tonight, but the car broke down.

Where were you?

When I got there, they were like “What are you doing here?”

Verb, auxiliary:
They were coming.

If it were said . . .

If his book were to be published this fall, we would get a jump on the competition.

If construction were to begin next summer instead of next fall, it could be finished three months earlier.

If I were to meet him at 6:30, I could see you at 9.

You were to follow these orders.

If I were to lose, the results would be catastrophic.

If I were to tell you, you’d think I was crazy.

Verb, linking:
If Amy and Max were 91 then, you must have been 64.

Jayne’s parents weren’t doing well.

The tickets were $25.

We were everything to each other.

The multi-story buildings were all over the campus.

Where are you from?

Where is she going?

Where do you come from?

Where does the argument lead?

Where did you read that?

Just where is all this leading us?

Adverb, relative:
I first saw him in Paris, where I lived in the early sixties.

Sit where I can see you.

This is where I live.

Where people were concerned, his threshold of boredom was low.

He was free to go where he liked.

Conjunction:
I see where the Red Sox lost again.

Where some caregivers burn out, others become too involved.

Do you see where the men in your life are emotionally unavailable to you?

I see where the hotel has changed hands again.

Noun:
It’s where the fire was.

It’s where he was living when I knew him.

Boston Store is where I got my new bathing suit.

Pronoun:
Where did you come from?

This is where the boat docks.

That was where the phone rang.

1. Old English wær from a Germanic base of ware.
2. Old English waru for commodities.
3. Old English warian from a Germanic base meaning observe, take care.
4. 1300-50; Middle English from the Old Norse verja meaning to spend, invest.
5. 1250-1300; Middle English from the Old Norse vār meaning spring. It may be akin to the Latin vēr or the Greek éar meaning spring.

1. Old English werian, originally from the Latin vestis for clothing.
2. Early 17th century.

1. Old English wer, from Proto-Germanic weraz, which is from Proto-Indo-European wiHrós, meaning man.
2. Back-formation from werewolf, meaning man-wolf, which is from Old English werwulf, derived from wer, meaning man, from Proto-Indo-European wiHrós, meaning man + wulf, meaning wolf.
3. Old English from an Indo-European root for remain.