free verse
Americannoun
noun
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Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of free verse
First recorded in 1905–10
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Singsong rhyme and meter are out; free verse and wistfulness are in.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 19, 2026
I’ve been in a fight with my husband about free verse versus poetic form.
From Los Angeles Times • May 11, 2026
Two six-minute compositions in the middle of “Ocean Blvd,” though, test the limits of Del Rey’s penchant for free verse.
From New York Times • Mar. 27, 2023
He wrote her postmodern poems — written in free verse, which she had never read before — and taught her how to write her own.
From Washington Post • Aug. 5, 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
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
