From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishas it wereas it wereEXACTused when describing someone or something in a way that is not quite exact Jim Radcliffe became our idol, as it were, the man we all wanted to be. → as
Examples from the Corpus
as it were• He cornered the market in heroes, as it were.• Maps to particular places allow one to penetrate the maze, by appointment as it were.• We do not have to try to remember ourselves in a vacuum, as it were.• That made me, by birth as it were, a member of the Strauss family.• The basic chords, as it were, are there.• He became famous, as it were , for never having a hit record.• He was there, as it were, in reflection.• Um, the computer guru, uh, the wizards as it were, is going to be there for emergency calls.• The basic signals are the same but each area has, as it were, its own dialect of calls. 