as it were

adverb2

1. •
   Used to indicate that a word or statement is perhaps not exact though practically right; as if it were so.

   • With so much construction and renovation going on all around him, he was more or less living in a new city now, as it were. [His city is not newly founded, and it has been neither renamed nor moved, but in some practical way it is true that he does not live in the same city that he used to live in.]
2. •
   Used to draw attention to the use of a metaphor, sometimes to prevent confusion or to highlight wordplay.

   • She gave all of the women seated at the restaurant food for thought, as it were.
   • Concerns that cloud seeding might “steal” water from an area a cloud is traveling toward—robbing Peter to water Paul, as it were—have been dispelled.