Sentence:  The evaporative cooler had been moved to Granny 's room , and her door was kept shut ; so that the rest of the house stayed open , though there was a question as to whether it <WSD>was</WSD> hotter or cooler that way . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)