As if; as it were; in a manner: used in introducing a proposed or possible explanation.A prefix or apparent adjective or adverb (and hence often written without the hyphen) meaning ‘seeming,’ ‘apparent’ (equivalent to ‘as it were,’ ‘in appearance,’ in predicate use), expressing some resemblance, but generally implying that what it qualifies is in some degree fictitious or unreal, or has not all the features of what it professes to be: as, a quasi-argument; a quasi-historical account. In construction and partly in sense it is like pseudo-.