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I began to think whether there might not be a movement, as it were, in a circle.

What confuses me in this sentence is usage of as it were. In this sentence, does it refer to the movement or the idiomatic meaning of as it were?

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    Can you add more context? There is likely a grammatical error in the sentence.
    – Esoteric Screen Name
    Aug 31, 2016 at 15:47
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    "as it were" is indeed an idiom, but I'm not sure if the original author meant it as an idiom or if he used it correctly. More context would help.
    – stangdon
    Aug 31, 2016 at 15:55
  • Related question: Why do we say "as it were"?
    – laugh salutes Monica C
    Aug 31, 2016 at 18:09
  • This is from Harvey's foundational An anatomical dissertation upon the movement of the heart and blood, and commas (and block caps!) in the original sentence make the usage clear: "I began to think whether there might not be A MOVEMENT, AS IT WERE, IN A CIRCLE."
    – P. E. Dant Reinstate Monica
    Sep 1, 2016 at 0:49
  • @P.E.dant Thank u a lot.Our textbook missed commas in it.So I am confused with this usage.
    – learner
    Sep 1, 2016 at 5:53

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"as it were" is an idiomatic phrase meaning roughly "in a way".

Additionally, the use of "were" with "it" tells us that it is based on the past subjunctive, which typically indicates counterfactual statements and thus expresses a degree of uncertainty.

I began to think whether there might not be a movement in a circle

This version specifically indicates thinking about movement in a circle; there's no uncertainty about the shape of the movement (although, there is still uncertainty about whether there is movement).

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Some context is required to answer your question, but there are two interpretations of as it were that may be applicable:

1) It can mean 'in a way', used to make something sound vague or unsure. In your example sentence, it could mean that the 'movement' is not strictly a movement and you wish to express the vagueness.

For example, imagine these situations:

A man walks across the room.

A second man lies on the floor, and rolls over and over across the room.

The second is very strange. You may then say:

The first man moved across the room.

The second man moved, as it were, across the room.

I wish to emphasise to the listener that I am not sure 'moving' is the correct verb to use.

The second meaning of 'as it were' is an uncommon contraction of 'as if it were', meaning to treat something as another thing.

For example:

I took the orphan to my house and I treated him as if he were my own son.

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    I think this example is odd: "The second man moved, as it were, across the room." moved is a very generic verb; the meaning of "as it were" might be more apparent with a verb like "rolled" or "floated", etc; that is, some verb which has a more specific meaning that there could be doubt about whether it actually fits. "I took the orphan to my house and I treated him as if he were my own son." For this example, you wouldn't refer to an orphan as "it", so "as it were" is not applicable.
    – eques
    Aug 31, 2016 at 15:57
  • I disagree, you're using the generic verb 'moved' because you're emphasising that it isn't the appropriate word by using 'as it were', because rolling over and over isn't what we'd call normal moving. The oprhan example isn't using it but it doesn't matter as the phrase 'as it were' can be used with other terms. If you prefer you could say I took the cat to my house and I treated it as it were my own pet
    – NibblyPig
    Sep 1, 2016 at 8:43
  • but there is no uncertainty or vagueness about moving; either he did move or he did not, so there isn't any "as it were" about it. If you were talking about something appearing to move, but didn't actually move then move + "as it were" would make sense. If you are talking about "as it were" in the sense of "as if it were" then you should use an example that would use "it" not "him" that was my point.
    – eques
    Sep 1, 2016 at 13:01
  • The vagueness is that what he did was not moving, in the conventional sense of the word. This is why you would use as it were. You wouldn't use it if it didn't move. You might say a bird flew up and sat on the tree. If a person was fired out of a cannon, you could say he flew, as it were, into the sky. He is not really flying because it is not quite the right word, so you explain this. Your answer above is literally agreeing with this so I am not sure what you are arguing about. It, him, her, etc. the pronoun doesn't change the meaning.
    – NibblyPig
    Sep 2, 2016 at 12:28
  • But in your example, he is moving; "roll[ing] over and over across the room" is a type of movement. Moving has no connotations other than thing was in one place and now it's in another; it says nothing about how. Thus "as it were" is inapplicable unless the thing didn't actually move but only appeared to. The point is your examples are misleading and/or confusing to a non-native speaker (let alone a native speaker)
    – eques
    Sep 2, 2016 at 12:50

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