verso

American  

[vur-soh] / ˈvɜr soʊ /

noun

Printing.

• versos
  plural

1. a left-hand page of an open book or manuscript (opposed to recto).

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verso British  

/ ˈvɜːsəʊ /

noun

1. 1. the back of a sheet of printed paper

   2. Also called: reverso.  the left-hand pages of a book, bearing the even numbers Compare recto

2. the side of a coin opposite to the obverse; reverse

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• versos
  plural

Etymology

Origin of verso

1830–40; short for Latin in versō foliō on the turned leaf

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

verso versos

“Sobekmose,” a masterwork containing about 100 spells, is unusual, in part, because it’s inscribed recto and verso.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 30, 2026

Exterior becomes interior — or verso becomes recto — in Leedham’s wittily jumbled tableaux.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 23, 2022

The lawsuit claimed that agreements signed by the jewelers contained illegible contract text in verso and therefore “cannot be binding.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 23, 2022

In The People of Paper, for example, different storylines play out in verso and recto, respectively, with odd-numbered pages following one set of characters and even-numbered pages another.

From Slate ● May 8, 2012

On the verso was a letter from Hattie to her mother.

From "Ella Enchanted" by Gail Carson Levine

Behind the talk of versos and rectos is the awareness that big money is moving into the market.

From Time Magazine Archive

“I’ve been looking for it everywhere, and I could really use some versos sencillos right now.”

From "The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora" by Pablo Cartaya

The houses were burned; the artillery and versos were taken down the hill.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 27 of 55 1636-37 Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century by James Alexander Robertson

Two bronze versos were found at that last site, which had been hidden in the river.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 29 of 55 Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century by Various

A vast amount of riches, many pieces of artillery, and versos, falcons, muskets, arquebuses, etc., were found.

From The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 — Volume 28 of 55 1637-38 Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century by Emma Helen Blair

Related Words

• reversal