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

From Verkolensk to Yakutsk, 4½ kopeks a verst per horse.

From From Paris to New York by Land by Harry De Windt

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

She stopped under the cross, and, looking around, saw that the man was half a verst distant, staggering along toward the town.

From Hania by Henryk Sienkiewicz

From Moscow to Warsaw one travels a long and rather dreary seven hundred miles, the first half of which is characterized by such sameness, verst after verst, as to render the journey extremely monotonous.

From Due North or Glimpses of Scandinavia and Russia by Maturin Murray Ballou

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