Sentence:  Starting with the room completely blacked out , as it <WSD>was</WSD> when we came in , he unerringly fixed things so that the whole place was bathed in the maximum of light without at any point admitting even so much as a crack of glare . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)