versify
Americanverb (used with object)
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to relate, describe, or treat (something) in verse.
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to convert (prose or other writing) into metrical form.
verb (used without object)
verb
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(tr) to render (something) into metrical form or verse
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(intr) to write in verse
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of versify
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English versifien, from Old French versifier, from Latin versificāre; see verse, -ify
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:
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
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 in the evenings, France's Secretary for Foreign Affairs continued to versify.
From Time Magazine Archive
He had already shown high appreciation of the virtue which lies in a good book when he chose Ghislanzoni to versify the Egyptian story of "Aïda."
From Chapters of Opera Being historical and critical observations and records concerning the lyric drama in New York from its earliest days down to the present time by Henry Edward Krehbiel
Captain Grose, the antiquary, who was collecting materials for his “Antiquities of Scotland,” published in 1789-91, got Burns to versify it and give it to him.
From Playful Poems by Henry Morley
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
Moreover, both kinds of interest deteriorated, reaching a nadir in a thin book of thin versified prattle called America Was Promises, in 1939.
From Time Magazine Archive
The palm of excellence was adjudged to Anseri, who versified the tale of Sohrab slain by his own father Roostem, one of the most pathetic and affecting narratives in any language.
From Secret Societies of the Middle Ages by Thomas Keightley
Preparing the text has been a process of “distillation, musicalizing some phrasings and versifying some lines.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 23, 2020
Still, Gioia admits that you can’t successfully capture live-action versifying in a book.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 2, 2019
It’s true we sometimes drop the ball— Our meter’s off or badly blown, Our rhymes so slant as to be prone— The versifying lacks a lot.
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 17, 2018
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
Nevertheless, in the midst of his recklessness, and by the quickness of his genius, he had learned "a little store of Latin," and acquired the habit of writing good prose, or of versifying agreeably.
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