wer

Etymology 1

From Middle English wer, were, from Old English wer (“man”), from Proto-Germanic *weraz, from Proto-Indo-European *wiHrós (“man, freeman”). Cognate with Middle High German wër (“man”), Swedish värbror (“brother-in-law”), Norwegian verfader (“father-in-law”), Latin vir (“man, husband”), Old Irish fer, Middle Welsh gwr. The original meaning of “man” is now preserved only in compounds like werewolf, were wolf (“man-wolf”) and wergeld, were gild (“man gold (payment)”).

noun

1. (obsolete or historical) A man; a male; a husband
   […]the character of a horseman was inseparable connected with the knight—the military attendant of the baron, who was himself nothing more than the Wer, or Man, of the king—even the armiger, […] 1862, E. William Robertson, Scotland Under Her Early Kings, page 137
   Further is this wort of two kinds, wer and wife, or male and female. The wer, or male, hath white blossoms, and the wife, or female, hath red or brown; either is beneficial and wonderlike, and they have on them wondrous virtue. 1864, Thomas Oswald Cockayne, Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England … from Brit. mus. ms. Cotton. Vitellius C. III, page 205
2. (obsolete or historical) A fine for slaying a man; wergeld.
   Under the system of money compensation, the kindred of the slain must demand payment of the wer, or prosecute the feud. They had the right to the wer when paid, and must by oath release the slayer and his kindred from the feud. 1876, Essays in Anglo-Saxon Law, page 144
   It was so in the England of Alfred's day; the maternal kinsfolk paid a third of the wer. The Leges Henrici, which about such a matter will not be inventing new rules, tell us that the paternal kinsfolk pay and receive two-thirds, the maternal kinsfolk one-third of the wer; and this is borne out by other evidence. 1895, Frederick Pollock, Frederic William Maitland, “Inheritance”, in The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I, volume II, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: At the University Press; Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, & Company, →OCLC, § 1 (Antiquities), page 239

Etymology 2

verb

1. Eye dialect spelling of were.