Sentence:  However , my principal objection in this sort of novel <WSD>is</WSD> to the hackneyed treatment of race-drivers , pilots , submariners , atomic researchers , and all the machine-masters of our age as brooding mystics or hysterical fatalists . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)