was

alternative wus · alternative wuz

1. first personindicativepastsingularfirst-person singular simple past indicative of be.

   I was castigated and scorned.

2. indicativepastsingularthird personthird-person singular simple past indicative of be.

   It was a really humongous slice of cake.

   2 more examples

   I killed my poor father, Tuesday was a week, for doing the like of that.

   1915, John Millington Synge, The Playboy of the Western World, section I

   He saw it clear enough, now that the lordling had pointed it out. “They couldn't have froze. Not if the Wall was weeping. It wasn't cold enough."

   1996 August 1, George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire; 1), HarperCollins, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 16

3. colloquialUsed in phrases with existential there when the semantic subject is (usually third-person) plural.

   There was three of them there.

   1 more example

   And in the vppermoſt baſket there was of all maner of †bake-meats foꝛ Pharaoh,and the birds did eat them out of the baſket vpon my head.

   1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Gen 40:17

4. colloquialindicativenonstandardpastsecond personsingularAfrican-American Vernacularsecond-person singular simple past indicative of be; were.

   "Was you outside the Bank of England, sir?"

   1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC

   1 more example

   You was pleased to cast a favourable eye upon me.

   1748, [Samuel Richardson], “Letter XXXIII”, in Clarissa. Or, The History of a Young Lady: […], volume (please specify |volume=I to VII), London: […] S[amuel] Richardson; [a]nd sold by John Osborn, […], →OCLC

5. colloquialfirst personindicativenonstandardpastpluralfirst-person plural simple past indicative of be; were.

   “What happened here, Hadley?” the chief asked. “We was robbed, damn it, we was robbed.”

   2001, Darrel Rachel, The Magnolias Still Bloom, page 104

6. colloquialindicativenonstandardpastpluralthird personAfrican-American Vernacularthird-person plural simple past indicative of be; were.

   When the reflection in the glass that I held to my lips now baby / Revealed the tears that was on my face, yeah

   1968, Etta James, Ellington Jordan, Billy Foster, “I'd Rather Go Blind”, performed by Etta James

   2 more examples

   And in them days, everything was mighty satisfactory. The critters, they was closer to the folks, and the folks, they was closer to the critters.

   1946, Morton Grant, Maurice Rapf, Dalton S. Reymond, Song of the South, spoken by Uncle Remus (James Baskett)

   Take or be taken. Get yours or get got. It was the code of the streets and I'd lived by it. The way things was looking, I was prolly gone die by it too.

   2006, Noire [pseudonym], Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 24

plural Wases

1. A surname.

1. pluralplural of WA