Were
Were and wer are archaic terms for adult male humans and were often used for alliteration with wife as "were and wife" in Germanic-speaking cultures.The word has cognates in various other languages, for example, the words vir and fear are the Latin and Gaelic for a male human.
In folklore and fantasy fiction, were- is often used as a prefix applied to an animal name to indicate a type of therianthropic figure or shapeshifter. Hyphenation used to be mandatory, but is now commonly dropped, as in werecat and wererat. This usage can be seen as a back-formation from werewolf, as there is no equivalent wifwolf yet attested.
