verst

American  

[vurst, verst] / vɜrst, vɛrst /

Or verste,

noun

1. a Russian measure of distance equivalent to 3,500 feet, or 0.6629 mile (1.067 kilometers).

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verst British  

/ vɛəst, vɜːst /

noun

1. a unit of length, used in Russia, equal to 1.067 kilometres (0.6629 miles)

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Etymology

Origin of verst

First recorded in 1545–55; from French verste or German Werst, from Russian verstá; Old Russian vĭrsta “age, agemate, pair, measure of length,” cognate with Czech vrstva “layer, stratum, bed,” Polish warstwa “layer, coating, sheet,” Serbo-Croatian vŕsta “sort, kind, species,” Old Church Slavonic vrĭsta “age, time of life,” from unrecorded Slavic vĭrsta “turn, bend,” from the Proto-Indo-European extended root wert- “to turn, wind,” source of Latin vertere “to turn,” and English suffix -ward ( def. ); see convert ¹, verse

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

verst

Drapes of eggshell rayon silk, fully a verst of it, hung from the ceiling to the floor.

From Time Magazine Archive

Looking out of the windows we could see four long trains ahead of us, and one about half a verst behind us.

From In the Russian Ranks A Soldier's Account of the Fighting in Poland by John Morse

From thence we had a gentle descent of about a verst to the outskirts of Piatigorsk.

From Travels in the Steppes of the Caspian Sea, the Crimea, the Caucasus, &c. by Xavier Hommaire de Hell

I’ve said before that Russia is still back in the Middle Ages, but now, with every verst we covered, it seemed to me we were getting farther back still,—to the Dark Ages themselves.

From The Red Symbol by John Ironside

I looked back for the last time when we were half a verst along the road.

From In the Russian Ranks A Soldier's Account of the Fighting in Poland by John Morse

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