wæs

Wæs is an Old English verb form, the past tense of the verb be (wesan). It corresponds to the Modern English word was. In Old English, wæs marks a past state or existence and is commonly found in historical, religious, and literary texts from the Anglo-Saxon period.

In terms of grammar, wæs is the singular past indicative form for the verb be. It appears with both first person singular (I was) and third person singular (he/she/it was). For the plural past, the common form is wæron (they were, we were). The past tense also had a past subjunctive form, often written as wære, used in dependent clauses or hypothetical statements. The spelling wæs reflects the Old English orthography, which used the ash letter æ; in some modern editions it is printed as was.

Etymology and cognates indicate that wæs derives from the Proto-Germanic verb wesaną, itself linked to the broader Indo-European root for “to be.” Cognates appear in other Germanic languages, such as Old Norse var and Gothic was, and the modern English forms was and were ultimately descend from the same ancient verb. The form wæs specifically represents a preterite (preterite indicative) singular, while other words in the West Saxon dialect and other Old English varieties provide related forms for different persons and numbers.

Today, wæs survives primarily in historical texts and linguistic studies of Old English. It is a key example of how the language marked tense and person in early be-forms, a precursor to the irregular English verb be.