verse

pronunciation

How to pronounce verse in British English: UK [vɜːs] word uk audio image

How to pronounce verse in American English: US [vɜːrs] word us audio image

Noun:

literature in metrical form
a piece of poetry
a line of metrical text
Verb:

compose verses or put into verse
familiarize through thorough study or experience

Word Origin

verse: verse: [OE] Verse is one of a large family of English words that come ultimately from the Latin verb vertere or its past participial stem vers-. Others include versatile [17], version [16], versus [15], vertebra, vertical, and vertigo, as well as prefixed forms such as controversy [14], conversation, convert, diverse, invert [16], pervert [14], and reverse [14].Latin vertere itself came from the Indo-European base *wert-, which also produced English weird and the suffix -ward. Verse was borrowed from the Latin derivative versus ‘turning, turning of the plough’, hence ‘furrow’, and by further metaphorical extension ‘line, line of poetry’.=> controversy, conversation, convert, diverse, invert, pervert, reverse, subvert, versatile, version, versus, vertebra, vertical, vertigo, weird

verse (n.): late Old English (replacing Old English fers, an early West Germanic borrowing directly from Latin), "line or section of a psalm or canticle," later "line of poetry" (late 14c.), from Anglo-French and Old French vers "line of verse; rhyme, song," from Latin versus "a line, row, line of 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] The English New Testament first was divided fully into verses in the Geneva version (1550s). Meaning "metrical composition" is recorded from c. 1300; as the non-repeating part of a modern song (between repetitions of the chorus) by 1918. The Negroes say that in form their old songs usually consist in what they call "Chorus and Verses." The "chorus," a melodic refrain sung by all, opens the song; then follows a verse sung as a solo, in free recitative; the chorus is repeated; then another verse; chorus again;--and so on until the chorus, sung for the last time, ends the song. [Natalie Curtis-Burlin, "Negro Folk-Songs," 1918]

2. A poet known for her landscape verse , ms oswald read classics at oxford .

3. Poets who work here give away copies of their verse in the reception area .

4. Peter gives two explicit answers in verse 38 to what they need-what we need .

5. In addition he was an esteemed poet , with a sideline in witty , mischievous verse .