poet
noun
a person who composes poetry.
poet
1 American
[poh-it]
/ ˈpoʊ ɪt /
poet.
2
American
abbreviation
-
poetic.
-
poetical.
-
poetry.
poet
British
/ ˈpəʊɪt /
noun
-
a person who writes poetry
-
a person with great imagination and creativity
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of poet
1250–1300; Middle English poete < Latin poēta < Greek poiētḗs poet, literally, maker, equivalent to poiē-, variant stem of poieîn to make + -tēs agent noun suffix
Explanation
If you’re a poet and you know it, you’re someone who writes poems. Poets have been charming people with their words ever since Orpheus sang his way to Hades and back. A poet is a writer who regularly publishes poems, but a poet can also be anyone who uses language creatively. Try it! The root of poet can be traced back to the Greek poein, "to make." Some poets write in carefully metered, rhyming lines, while others compose looser prose poems or "free verse," and the very best poets convey something that's essential or true. The Romantic poet William Wordsworth described good poetry as “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.”
Vocabulary lists containing poet
Reading: Literature - Poetry - Introductory
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Reading: Literature - Poetry - Middle School
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Reading: Literature - Middle School
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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.
See Examples For:
It enabled him to purchase the Old Vicarage at Grantchester near Cambridge, formerly the home of war poet, Rupert Brooke, as well as a penthouse in London.
From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026
The poet from Amherst, Mass., was in her early 30s, a well-educated woman with a big library of books.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026
James Noel, a Haitian poet and novelist who has known Orelien for 20 years, said he spoke with him at the height of the controversy and found him "devastated".
From Barron's ● Sep. 30, 2026
Taught by L.A.-based artist and poet Kate Ingold, the workshops center on samizdat, a practice in which Soviet dissidents hand-typed literature, criticism and poetry to bypass state censorship.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2026
There was for a fact a poet among us, somebody nobody knew.
From "The Teacher’s Funeral" by Richard Peck
"To find beauty in ugliness is the province of the poet. The most beautiful defeat of my career."
From BBC ● Apr. 23, 2025
“But I love that song so much. It makes me feel like I’m living in a dream. She’s my favorite poet. I adore her.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2023
I realized, “Oh, the character is a poet. I’m going to step aside and let you, a poet, inhabit the character.”
From New York Times ● Apr. 20, 2023
“Culture isn’t dead. We have a governor who’s a poet. How great is that?” said Bushell, who has since published “Balancing Act 2: An Anthology of Poems by Fifty Maine Women.”
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 13, 2023
“She was a writer and a poet. She wrote a poem that is engraved on the Statue of Liberty that says, ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’”
From "Lucky Broken Girl" by Ruth Behar
Under the Soviet Union, dissident artists, poets and creators distributed their work within small, private networks, according to Ingold.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2026
Gerd believes it's important to look both to the future and to a history before the Nazi era, when German-speaking lands were known as a place of "poets and thinkers."
From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026
Philip Oltermann’s “The Stasi Poetry Circle” relates the absurdly true story of spies who became poets in an attempt to win the Cold War.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026
She also called on the Eisteddfod to review their entry rules, where poets compete under a pseudonym.
From BBC ● Aug. 3, 2026
In the later poets, Artemis is identified with Hecate.
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
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.
