Were
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. In folklore and fantasy fiction,
were- is often used as a prefix applied to an animal name to indicate a type of lycanthropy and/or shapeshifter. 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, as there is no equivalent
wifewolf. Gothic has a word translating
kosmos, not derived from the same stem:
faírhvus, used by Ulfilas 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". The word has cognates in various other languages, for example, the words
vir and
fear are the Latin and Gaelic for a male human.