versify

American  

[vur-suh-fahy] / ˈvɜr səˌfaɪ /

verb (used with object)

versified, versifying

1. to relate, describe, or treat (something) in verse.

2. to convert (prose or other writing) into metrical form.

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verb (used without object)

versified, versifying

1. to compose verses.

versify British  

/ ˈvɜːsɪˌfaɪ /

verb

1. (tr) to render (something) into metrical form or verse

2. (intr) to write in verse

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Other Word Forms

• versifier
  noun
• unversified
  adjective

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Etymology

Origin of versify

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English versifien, from Old French versifier, from Latin versificāre; see verse, -ify

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

versify versified versifying

In fact, I noted that Yarlexis may have benefited from a lack of facility with English in this case—some of those other queens were trying to versify overstuffed lines that made this English major cringe!

From Slate ● Nov. 13, 2012

But in the evenings, France's Secretary for Foreign Affairs continued to versify.

From Time Magazine Archive

If history's most absorbent author needed high legal drama, he had only to versify the royal squabbles in Holinshed's Chronicles.

From Time Magazine Archive

But everybody else had realised that the trio was struggling for mastery, so without attempting to versify they kept their gaze fixed on them and gave way to laughter.

From Hung Lou Meng, Book II Or, the Dream of the Red Chamber, a Chinese Novel in Two Books by H. Bencraft Joly

M. Paul de Musset does not relate that his brother began to versify in his infancy; but Alfred was indeed hardly more than an infant when he achieved his first success.

From The Galaxy, June 1877 Vol. XXIII.—June, 1877.—No. 6. by Various

Paraphrased and versified, some of Hardwick’s letters, along with her spoken words from that supposedly merry phone call of June 25, 1970, would find their way into the book, without her permission.

From The New Yorker ● Dec. 9, 2019

The bounce of this versified self-portrait — there are six more stanzas — is quite irresistible, as T.S.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 11, 2018

Thus wrote super-Pan Italian poet-soldier-philanderer Gabriele d'Annunzio, not long ago, and his versified words, deep cut in granite, now adorn the Brenner Monument.

From Time Magazine Archive

One friend, Poet Thomas Hearne, versified that he had collected for the good doctor: A snake skin which you may believe The serpent cast that tempted Eve.

From Time Magazine Archive

Each narrative is followed by a versified version of it.

From Notes and Queries, Number 85, June 14, 1851 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Geneologists, etc. by Various

Preparing the text has been a process of “distillation, musicalizing some phrasings and versifying some lines.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 23, 2020

Its prose accretes the oracular weight of a holy text as it evokes the genesis of Little Boy’s lonely consciousness, and it exempts itself from pedestrian laws of punctuation to support the versifying rhythm.

From The New Yorker ● Jun. 4, 2019

Still, Gioia admits that you can’t successfully capture live-action versifying in a book.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 2, 2019

Artfully arranged words, lofty and lowdown, are the weapons of choice in “ToasT,” Lemon Andersen’s ambitious and unwieldy new play about versifying behind bars, which opened on Tuesday night at the Public Theater.

From New York Times ● May 5, 2015

The examples of Lucretius versifying philosophy in his Nature of Things, and that of Horace writing literary criticism in verse in his Art of Poetry, have been fruitful of mischief.

From The Literature of Ecstasy by Albert Mordell

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