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Were and wer are archaism terms for adult male and were often used for alliteration with wife as "were and wife" in Germanic-speaking cultures (, , , , , , ).
In Anglo-Saxon law wer was the value of a man's life. He could be required to pay his wer to the king as a penalty for crime. If he was murdered then his relatives were entitled to his wergild as compensation from the murderer.
It is likely that wer forms part of a compound word in werewolf (man-wolf), although there are other proposed etymologies.Concise OED, entry "werewolf" In folklore and fantasy fiction, were- is often affix to an animal name to indicate a therianthropic figure or shapeshifting ( e.g. "were-boar"). Hyphenation used to be mandatory, but is now commonly dropped, as in werecat and wererat. There is no attested counterpart wifwylf or wyfwylf .
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