as it were

1. 1.

   as if it were really so

   “she lives here, as it were”

   Synonymsso to speak

Questions about as it were

What does as it were mean?

as it were means "as if it were really so".

What is another word for as it were?

Close synonyms include so to speak. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is as it were a common word?

as it were is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.