Were
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Were and wer are archaic terms for adult male humans and were often used for alliteration with wife as "were and wife" in Germanic-speaking cultures (Old English were, German Wehr, Gothic waír, Old Frisian wer, Old Saxon wer, Old High German wer, Old Norse verr).
In folklore and fantasy fiction, were- is often used as a prefix applied to an animal name to indicate a type of shapeshifter (e.g. "were-boar"). Hyphenation used to be mandatory but is now commonly dropped, as in werecat and wererat. This usage can be seen as a back formation from werewolf (literally, "man-wolf"), as there is no equivalent wifewolf. A further back formation, polywere, eliminates the animal root entirely.
Gothic has a word translating kosmos derived from the same stem: faírhvus, used by Wulfila in alternation with manasêþs. The corresponding West Germanic term is werold "world", literally wer "man" + ald "age". Gothic faírhvus is cognate to Old High German fërah, Old English feorh, terms expressing "lifetime" (aevum).[1]
The word has cognates in various other languages, for example, the words vir (as in virile) and fear (plural fir as in Fir Bolg) are the Latin and Gaelic for man.
[edit] References
- ^ Jacob Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, ch. 25[1]
