The word(s) "were" appears 426 time(s) in 380 verse(s) in Quran in Abdullah Yusuf Ali translation.

(311) And neither heaven nor earth shed a tear over them: nor were they given a respite (again).

(312) What! Are they better than the people of Tubba and those who were before them? We destroyed them because they were guilty of sin.

(313) "This Our Record speaks about you with truth: For We were wont to put on Record all that ye did."

(314) But as to those who rejected Allah, (to them will be said): "were not Our Signs rehearsed to you? But ye were arrogant, and were a people given to sin!

(315) The Unbelievers say of those who believe: "If (this Message) were a good thing, (such men) would not have gone to it first, before us!" And seeing that they guide not themselves thereby, they will say, "this is an (old,) falsehood!"

(316) And on the Day that the Unbelievers will be placed before the Fire, (It will be said to them): "Ye received your good things in the life of the world, and ye took your pleasure out of them: but today shall ye be recompensed with a Penalty of humiliation: for that ye were arrogant on earth without just cause, and that ye (ever) transgressed."

(317) Then, when they saw the (Penalty in the shape of) a cloud traversing the sky, coming to meet their valleys, they said, "This cloud will give us rain!" "Nay, it is the (Calamity) ye were asking to be hastened!- A wind wherein is a Grievous Penalty!

(318) And We had firmly established them in a (prosperity and) power which We have not given to you (ye Quraish!) and We had endowed them with (faculties of) hearing, seeing, heart and intellect: but of no profit to them were their (faculties of) hearing, sight, and heart and intellect, when they went on rejecting the Signs of Allah; and they were (completely) encircled by that which they used to mock at!

(319) And on the Day that the Unbelievers will be placed before the Fire, (they will be asked,) "Is this not the Truth?" they will say, "Yea, by our Lord!" (One will say:) "Then taste ye the Penalty, for that ye were wont to deny (Truth)!"

(320) were it to obey and say what is just, and when a matter is resolved on, it were best for them if they were true to Allah.