Sentence:  I felt superior to the neighborhood friends I was leaving behind , felt older than my years , and <WSD>was</WSD> full of compliments for myself as I headed into the subway that was carrying its packs of passengers out of that dull borough and into the unstable , tantalizing excitement of Manhattan . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)