Sentence:  But during the second half of the century its fortunes reached a low point and when in 1897 Cyrus H. K. Curtis purchased it - `` paper , type , and all '' - for $ 1000 it <WSD>was</WSD> a 16 - page weekly filled with unsigned fiction and initialed miscellany , and with only some 2000 subscribers . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)