different between there vs were

English

Alternative forms

• (pronunciation spellings): dar, der, dere; dey
• (obsolete): thare

Etymology

From Middle English there, ther, thare, thar, thore, from Old English þ?r, þ?r, þ?r (“there; at that place”), from Proto-West Germanic *þ?r, from Proto-Germanic *þar (“at that place; there”), from Proto-Indo-European *tar- (“there”), from demonstrative pronominal base *to- (“the, that”) + adverbial suffix *-r.

Cognate with Scots thar, thair (“there”), North Frisian dear, deer, där (“there”), Saterland Frisian deer (“there”), West Frisian dêr (“there”), Dutch daar (“there”), Low German dar (“there”), German da, dar- (“there”), Danish der (“there”), Norwegian der (“there”), Swedish där (“there”), Icelandic þar (“in that place, there”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ð??(?)/, /ð??(?)/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ð???/
• Maine accent IPA^(key): /?ðe??/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ðe?(?)/
• Rhymes: -??(?)
• Homophones: their, they're

Adverb

there (not comparable)

1. (location) In a place or location (stated, implied or otherwise indicated) at some distance from the speaker (compare here).
   • 1623, William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors, Act 5, Scene 1,

     And in a dark and dankish vault at home / There left me and my man, both bound together;

   • 1769, King James Bible, Oxford Standard text, Genesis, 2, viii,

     The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, 1773, James Buchanan (editor), The First Six Books of Milton's Paradise Lost: Rendered into Grammatical Construction, page 381,

     To veil the heav'n, tho' darkne?s there might well / Seem twilight here.

2. (figuratively) In that matter, relation, etc.; at that point, stage, etc., regarded as a distinct place.

   He did not stop there, but continued his speech.

   They patched up their differences, but matters did not end there.

   • 1597 William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 3, Scene 3, 1836, The Works of Shakespeare, Isaac, Tuckey, and Co., page 825,

     The law, that threaten’d death, becomes thy friend / And turns it to exile; there art thou happy.

3. (location) To or into that place; thither.
   • a. 1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, prologue:

     A knight there was, and that a worthy man / […]

   • 1623, William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 2, Scene 1,

     And the rarest that e’er came there.

   • 1690, John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Chapter IX, paragraph 4:

     So that wherever there is sense or perception, there some idea is actually produced, and present in the understanding.

   • 1769, King James Bible, Oxford Standard text, Job, 28, vii,

     There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture's eye hath not seen:

4. (obsolete) Where, there where, in which place.
   • a. 1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Summoners's Prologue and Tale, in The Canterbury Tales,

     And spende hir good ther it is resonable;

     Note: Modern editions commonly render this instance of ther as where.

5. In existence or in this world; see pronoun section below.
   • 1928 January, Captain Ferdinand Tuohy, "Why Don't We Fly?", in Popular Science, page 144:

     These firms do not want the truth to get out and are financing these flights in the hope of dazzling the public. Yet the record of the gas engine is there for all to see.

Usage notes

• The use of there instead of they're (meaning they are) or their (possessive form of they) is a common error in English writing.
• (to or into that place):
  • There is sometimes used by way of exclamation, calling attention to something, especially to something distant; such as in the phrases There, there!, See there and Look there!
  • There is often used as an expletive, and in this use, when it introduces a sentence or clause, the verb precedes its subject.
  • There is much used in composition, and often has the sense of a pronoun. See thereabout, thereafter, therefrom, etc.

Synonyms

• (at or in a place): over there, away there (at some distance); thither (archaic); yonder (archaic or dialect)
• (to or into that place): over there, away there (at some distance); thither (archaic); yonder (archaic or dialect)

Translations

Interjection

there

1. Used to offer encouragement or sympathy.

   There, there. Everything is going to turn out all right.

2. Used to express victory or completion.

   There! That knot should hold.

Translations

Noun

there (plural theres)

1. That place.
2. That status; that position.

   You rinse and de-string the green beans; I'll take it from there.

Translations

Pronoun

there

1. Used as an expletive subject of be in its sense of “exist”, with the semantic, usually indefinite subject being postponed or (occasionally) implied.

   There are two apples on the table. [=Two apples are on the table.]

   There is no way to do it. [=No way to do it exists.]

   Is there an answer? [=Does an answer exist?]

   No, there isn't. [=No, one doesn't exist.]

   • 1908, C. H. Bovill (lyrics), Jerome D. Kern (music), There’s Something Rather Odd About Augustus, song from the musical Fluffy Ruffles,

     It's very sad but all the same, / There’s something rather odd about Augustus.

   • 1909, Leo Tolstoy, translator not mentioned, There are No Guilty People, in The Forged Coupon and Other Stories,

     There was a time when I tried to change my position, which was not in harmony with my conscience; […] .

   • 1918, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Constance Garnett {translator), Notes from Underground, Part 1, II,

     There are intentional and unintentional towns.

2. Used with other intransitive verbs of existence, in the same sense, or with other intransitive verbs, adding a sense of existence.

   If x is a positive number, then there exists [=there is] a positive number y less than x.

   There remain several problems with this approach. [=Several problems remain with this approach.]

   Once upon a time, in a now-forgotten kingdom, there lived a woodsman with his wife. [=There was a woodsman, who lived with his wife.]

   There arose a great wind out of the east. [=There was now a great wind, arising in the east.]

   • 1895, Sabine Baring-Gould, A Book of Nursery Songs and Rhymes: Nursery Songs, XXII: The Tree in the Wood,

     All in a wood there grew a fine tree,

   • 1897, James Baldwin, The Story of Abraham Lincoln: The Kentucky Home, in Four Great Americans,

     Not far from Hodgensville, in Kentucky, there once lived a man whose name was Thomas Lincoln.

   • 1904, Uriel Waldo Cutler, Stories of King Arthur and His Knights, Chapter XXXI: How Sir Launcelot Found the Holy Grail,

     On a night, as he slept, there came a vision unto him, and a voice said, "Launcelot, arise up, and take thine armour, and enter into the first ship that thou shalt find."

3. Used with other verbs, when raised.

   There seems to be some difficulty with the papers. [=It seems that there is some difficulty with the papers.]

   I expected there to be a simpler solution. [=I expected that there would be a simpler solution.]

   There are beginning to be complications. [=It's beginning to be the case that there are complications.]

4. (in combination with certain prepositions, no longer productive) That.

   therefor, thereat, thereunder

5. (colloquial) Appended to words of greeting etc.

   Hi there, young fellow.

   Oh, hello there, Bob, how are you doing?

   • 2016, VOA Learning English (public domain)

     Hi there! I’m Anna and I live in Washington, D.C.

Usage notes

• In formal English, the verb agrees with the semantic subject: “there is a tree”, “there are some trees”, “there seems to be a mistake”, “there seem to be some mistakes”, and so on. This is because the "there [form of be]" construction originally used, and could still be said to use, "there" as simply an adverb modifying "to be". However, the syntax is archaic enough that "there" is rarely recognized as an adverb. In colloquial usage, therefore, the verb is often found in the third-person singular form, even when the semantic subject is plural — “there’s some trees”, “there seems to be some mistakes” — but this is often considered incorrect.

Translations

Contraction

there

1. Misspelling of they’re.

Determiner

there

1. Misspelling of their.

Derived terms

See also

References

• there at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• Ehret, Ether, Reeth, ether, rethe, theer, three

Middle English

Determiner

there

1. Alternative form of þeir

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English were, weren, from Old English w?re, w?ron, w?ren, from Proto-Germanic *w?z-, from Proto-Indo-European *h?wes-. More at was.

Pronunciation

stressed

• (UK) enPR: wûr, IPA^(key): /w??(?)/
• (UK, regional) enPR: wâr, IPA^(key): /w??(?)/
• (US) enPR: wûr, IPA^(key): /w?/
• Rhymes: -??(?)
• Homophone: whirr (in accents with the wine-whine merger)

unstressed

• (UK) enPR: w?r, IPA^(key): /w?(?)/
• (US) enPR: w?r, IPA^(key): /w?/

Verb

were

1. second-person singular simple past indicative of be

2. first/second/third-person plural simple past indicative of be

3. first/second/third-person singular/plural simple present/past subjunctive of be

   I wish that it were Sunday.

   I wish that I were with you.

   • with “if” omitted, put first in an “if” clause:

     Were it simply that she wore a hat, I would not be upset at all. (= If it were simply...)

     Were father a king, we would have war. (= If father were a king,...)
4. (Northern England) first/third-person singular simple past indicative of be.

Synonyms

• (second-person singular past indicative, archaic) wast (used with “thou”)
• (second-person singular imperfect subjunctive, archaic) wert (used with “thou”)

See also

Etymology 2

From Middle English were, wer, see wer.

Noun

were (plural weres)

1. Alternative form of wer (“man; wergeld”)
   • 1799-1805, Sharon Trurner, History of the Anglo-Saxons

     Every man was valued at a certain sum, which was called his were.

   • 1867, John Lingard, T. Young, Introduction to English History [...] arranged [...] by T. Young, page 19:

     If by that he failed to pay or give security for the were, or fine, at which murder was legally rated; he might be put to death by the relatives of the murdered man.

   • 1908, Frederic Jesup Stimson, The Law of the Federal and State Constitutions of the United States, page 13:

     Written statutes busied themselves only with the amount of the were, or fine, or (for the first century after the Conquest) with the method of procedure.

Etymology 3

Back-formation from werewolf and other terms in were-, from the same source as English wer, were (“man”) (above).

Noun

were (plural weres)

1. (fandom slang) The collective name for any kind of person that changes into another form under certain conditions, including the werewolf.

Anagrams

• Ewer, ewer, ewre, rewe, weer

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -e?r?

Verb

were

1. (archaic) singular present subjunctive of weren

Anagrams

• weer

Fijian

Noun

were

1. garden

Verb

were (wereca)

1. to garden, to weed (wereca specifically)

Irarutu

Etymology

From Proto-Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian *wai?, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *wahi?.

Noun

were

1. water (clear liquid H?O)

Further reading

• Cornelis L. Voorhoeve, Languages of Irian Jaya Checklist (1975, Canberra: Pacific Linguistics)

Maku'a

Noun

were

1. water

References

• Aone van Engelenhoven, The position of Makuva among the Austronesian languages of Southwest Maluku and East Timor, in Austronesian historical linguistics and culture history: a festschrift, Pacific linguistics 601 (2009)

Middle English

Etymology 1

From Old English w?re (second-person singular indicative and subjunctive past of wesan).

Alternative forms

• weer, weere, wer, wære

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?w??r(?)/, /?w?r(?)/

Verb

were

1. inflection of been:
   1. second-person singular indicative past
   2. singular subjunctive past

Descendants

• English: were (dialectal war, ware)
• Scots: war, waar, ware, waur, wur, wir

Etymology 2

From a conflation of Old English w?ron and Old English w?ren.

Verb

were

1. Alternative form of weren

Etymology 3

From Old English werre, wyrre.

Noun

were

1. Alternative form of werre

Mwani

Noun

were 5 (plural mawere)

1. breast

Northern Kurdish

Verb

were

1. second-person singular imperative of hatin

Onin

Etymology

From Proto-Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian *wai?, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *wahi?.

Noun

were

1. water (clear liquid H?O)

Tocharian B

Noun

were ?

1. smell, odor, scent, aroma

Toro

Noun

were

1. day

References

• Roger Blench, The Toro language of Central Nigeria and its affinities (2012)

Uruangnirin

Etymology

From Proto-Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian *wai?, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *wahi?.

Noun

were

1. water (clear liquid H?O)