sabíais

Sabíais is a verb form in Spanish, the imperfect indicative of saber for the second-person plural subject vosotros/vosotras. It means “you (all) knew” in past contexts. The ending -íais is the standard imperfect ending for vosotros in verbs of the -er/-ir group, and saber follows that regular pattern in this tense, even though saber itself is irregular in other tenses. In Latin American varieties where the vosotros form is not used, sabíais is typically replaced by sabían (with ustedes).

Etymology and morphology: Saber comes from Latin sapere, meaning to know. In the imperfect, the stem remains sab-, and the ending for vosotros is -íais, yielding sabíais. This form is distinct from sabríais, the second-person plural of the conditional tense (you would know), which uses a different stem (sabr-).

Usage: Sabíais appears in narratives or descriptions that involve habitual or past states of knowledge with vosotros. It is most common in Spain, where the vosotros pronoun is standard. In other dialects, people typically use sabían (with ustedes) to express the same idea. The imperfect tense sets the action in the past without specifying its beginning or end, often providing background information or habitual past actions.

Examples:

- Cuando llegasteis, ya sabíais la noticia. (When you all arrived, you already knew the news.)

- No sabíais que llovía. (You all didn’t know that it was raining.)

See also: Saber (conjugation), Imperfect indicative, Vosotros.