free verse

American  

[free vurs] / ˈfri ˈvɜrs /

noun

Prosody.

• free verses
  plural

1. verse that does not follow a fixed metrical pattern.

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free verse British  

noun

1. unrhymed verse without a metrical pattern

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free verse Cultural  

1. Verse without regular meter or rhyme. Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman, is written almost entirely in free verse.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• free-versifier
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• free verses
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of free verse

First recorded in 1905–10

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Compare meaning

How does free-verse compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• blank verse vs. free verse

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

free verse

Mr. Power’s previous books have mostly been about 18th-century writers, yet he is as much at home with recent free verse as with rhymed couplets and sonnets.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026

I’ve been in a fight with my husband about free verse versus poetic form.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 11, 2026

It spans 22 panels, down which Cendrars’s free verse runs in 30 different typefaces.

From New York Times ● Aug. 3, 2023

Renshi is a kind of Japanese collaborative poetry that is more open-ended free verse than older forms like “renku.”

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 8, 2022

Feeling for the first time that I could speak to listening ears, I wrote a wild, crude poem in free verse, coining images of black hands playing, working, holding bayonets, stiffening finally in death ...

From "Black Boy" by Richard Wright

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