wern

English

Etymology

From Middle English weren, equivalent to were +‎ -en.

Alternative forms

• weren

Verb

wern

1. (obsolete) plural simple past of be
   • c. 1450, The Dicts and Sayings of the Philosophers:

     And thanne he seide to other folkes that thei shulde seye somme goode thinges for to recomforte the lordes and the people, which werne in grete trouble as for the deth of the moste noble kinge that ever was.

   • 1469, Margaret Paston, The Paston Letters:

     And she rehearsed what she had said, and said if tho words made it not sure she said boldly that she would make it surer ere than she went thence; for she said she thought in her conscience she was bound, whatsoever the words wern.

   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IIII, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, page 32:

     Her name was Agape whoſe children werne
     All three as one, the firſt hight Priamond,
     The ſecond Dyamond, the youngeſt Triamond.

   • 1910, “Glasgerion”, in Arthur Quiller-Couch, editor, The Oxford Book of English Verse:

     Through the falseness of that lither lad
     These three lives wern all gone.

Anagrams

• Wren, wren

Middle English

Verb

wern

1. Alternative form of weren
2. To refuse.
   • 1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “(please specify the story)”, in The Canterbury Tales, [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], →OCLC; republished in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London]: […] [Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], 1542, →OCLC:

     He is too great a niggard that will wern/ A man to light a candle at his lantern.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)