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was verb Past tense of be, used with a plural noun or plural pronoun as its subject. [OED dates this usage from the 14th century; DARE labels this usage "especially South, Midland" in the U.S.]

1799 Globe Creek Church Minutes 6 then the several Letters was read & fild & the different Churches & delegates Names was enrolled. 1840 Zion Church Minutes 22 [The Church Conference] opened the door for the reception of members and Barbery Bennett, Anna Ayers and Moses Ayers all came forward and offered by experience and was received. 1862 Griffin CW Letters (July 31) they was not secessioners for they was for the younion. 1910 Cooke Power and Glory 227 They might have passed here while we was standin' back there talkin' to Roxy. 1939 Hall Coll (Cataloochee NC) We went over and put us up a still, and we was a-making some awful good [liquor]. It was so good you could taste the gal’s feet in it that hoed the corn it was made out of. 1969 GSMNP-44:12 They come from Ireland. They was Scot Irish. 1972 AOHP/ALC-413 You were born in the year nineteen hundred, wasn’t you? 1989 Matewan OHP- 001 We was lucky to have those.