Sentence:  He <WSD>was</WSD> able to smell a bargain - and a masterpiece - a continent away , and the Museum of Modern Art 's Alfred Barr said of him : `` I have never mentioned a new artist that Thompson did n't know about '' . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)