verse

[vurs]

See more synonyms for verse on Thesaurus.com

noun

(not in technical use) a stanza.
a succession of metrical feet written, printed, or orally composed as one line; one of the lines of a poem.
a particular type of metrical line: a hexameter verse.

a poem, or piece of poetry.
metrical composition; poetry, especially as involving metrical form.
metrical writing distinguished from poetry because of its inferior quality: a writer of verse, not poetry.
a particular type of metrical composition: elegiac verse.
the collective poetry of an author, period, nation, etc.: Miltonian verse; American verse.
one of the short conventional divisions of a chapter of the Bible.
Music.
1. that part of a song following the introduction and preceding the chorus.
2. a part of a song designed to be sung by a solo voice.
Rare. a line of prose, especially a sentence, or part of a sentence, written as one line.
Rare. a subdivision in any literary work.

adjective

of, relating to, or written in verse: a verse play.

verb (used without object), versed, vers·ing.

versify.

verb (used with object), versed, vers·ing.

to express in verse.

Origin of verse

before 900; Middle English vers(e), fers line of poetry, section of a psalm, Old English fers < Latin versus a row, line (of poetry), literally, a turning, equivalent to vert(ere) to turn (past participle versus) + -tus suffix of v. action, with dt > s; akin to -ward, worth²

Related formsun·der·verse, noun

Can be confusedverses versus

Synonyms for verse

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1. Verse, stanza, strophe, stave are terms for a metrical grouping in poetic composition. Verse is often mistakenly used for stanza, but is properly only a single metrical line. A stanza is a succession of lines (verses) commonly bound together by a rhyme scheme, and usually forming one of a series of similar groups that constitute a poem: The four-line stanza is the one most frequently used in English. Strophe (originally the section of a Greek choral ode sung while the chorus was moving from right to left) is in English poetry practically equivalent to “section”; a strophe may be unrhymed or without strict form, but may be a stanza: Strophes are divisions of odes. Stave is a word (now seldom used) that means a stanza set to music or intended to be sung: a stave of a hymn; a stave of a drinking song. 4–6. See poetry.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for versing

tutor, educate, control, advance, coach, prepare, lead, show, prime, indoctrinate, manage, direct, inform, instruct, train, verse, drill, discipline, cultivate, guide

Examples from the Web for versing

Historical Examples of versing

It is not rhyming and versing that maketh poesy; one may be a poet without versing, and a versifier without poetry.
Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, Vol. 1
Henry Hallam
But that which giveth greatest scope to their scorning humour, is rhyming and versing.
A Defence of Poesie and Poems
Philip Sidney
When I was a boy I had a knack at versing, which came rather in anticipation of the subjects to use it on.
Imaginary Interviews
W. D. Howells

British Dictionary definitions for versing

verse

noun

(not in technical usage) a stanza or other short subdivision of a poem
poetry as distinct from prose
1. a series of metrical feet forming a rhythmic unit of one line
2. (as modifier)verse line
a specified type of metre or metrical structureiambic verse
one of the series of short subsections into which most of the writings in the Bible are divided
a metrical composition; poem

verb

a rare word for versify

Word Origin for verse

Old English vers, from Latin versus a furrow, literally: a turning (of the plough), from vertere to turn

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for versing

verse

c.1050, "line or section of a psalm or canticle," later "line of poetry" (late 14c.), from Anglo-French and Old French vers, from Latin versus "verse, line of writing," from PIE root *wer- (3) "to turn, bend" (see versus). The metaphor is of plowing, of "turning" from one line to another (vertere = "to turn") as a plowman does.

Verse was invented as an aid to memory. Later it was preserved to increase pleasure by the spectacle of difficulty overcome. That it should still survive in dramatic art is a vestige of barbarism. [Stendhal "de l'Amour," 1822]

Old English had fers, an early West Germanic borrowing directly from Latin. Meaning "metrical composition" is recorded from c.1300; sense of "part of a modern pop song" (as distinguished from the chorus) is attested from 1927. The English New Testament first was divided fully into verses in the Geneva version (1550s).

versing in Culture

verse

A kind of language made intentionally different from ordinary speech or prose. It usually employs devices such as meter and rhyme, though not always. Free verse, for example, has neither meter nor rhyme. Verse is usually considered a broader category than poetry, with the latter being reserved to mean verse that is serious and genuinely artistic.

Idioms and Phrases with versing

verse

see chapter and verse.