verse

Pluralverses

Formsverses, versing, versed

1. 1
   nouncountable

   One of the repeating sections of a song, made up of several lines that usually rhyme.

   The chorus returns after each verse to tie the song together.

   The band added a new verse to the old folk tune.

   Similarstanza

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A short numbered section of a holy book, such as the Bible or Quran.

   She marked her favorite verse with a thin ribbon.

   The teacher asked the class to memorize one verse each week.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   Literary composition written in lines with meter or rhythm, as distinct from prose.

   He turned to verse after years of writing novels.

   Much of the early epic survives only as fragments of verse.

   Similarpoetry, rhyme

   Oppositeprose

4. 4
   noununcountable

   Writing arranged in metrical lines, typically with a regular beat and often a set rhyme scheme, as distinct from prose.

   The poet worked the whole tale into rhyming verse.

   Students study the patterns of meter that give verse its measured sound.

   Similarpoetry

   Oppositeprose

   Note

   The word carries its own picture. Latin versus meant a row or furrow, from vertō, "to turn," so a line of verse is one that turns back at its end, like a plow at the edge of a field. In this strict sense the word demands meter and rhyme together, as in the carefully built verse of Restoration literature. The looser sense admits any poetic form.

5. 5
   verbcolloquialtransitive

   To play against or compete with an opponent.

   Local clubs verse one another twice each season.

   He asked which side they would verse in the playoffs.

   Similarplay, face, meet

   Note

   A newer verb with a separate origin. Speakers heard versus as a third-person verb, "verses," and built verse from it, as in "Who did you verse?" Nick Green observed in 2007 that teams now "verse" each other. It thrives in gaming and sports talk, where Taskmaster NZ has the Blackcaps who "versed Ireland." Many readers object to it, so in careful writing use play, face or compete against.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   A passage of an anthem performed by a single voice on each part, rather than by the full choir.

   The choirmaster assigned the verse to four of his strongest singers.

   After the full chorus, the music thins to a quiet verse.

   Note

   Church music gives the word a narrow, technical job. In an anthem, the verse is the passage handed to solo voices, one singer to each part. It is set against the "full" sections sung by the whole choir, and that alternation defines the English verse anthem. A choirmaster who assigns the verse is choosing soloists, not a stanza of text.

7. 7
   verbtransitive

   To relate or express a subject in poetic form.

   He chose to verse the founding myth rather than record it in plain prose.

   The minstrel versed the king's victory for the gathered court.

   Similarversify, poeticize

   Note

   Shakespeare gives the verb an object in A Midsommer Nights Dreame (c. 1595–1596): "playing on pipes of corn and versing love." The intransitive verb simply means writing poetry. This one names what the poem is about, the way one sings a story or tells a tale. Outside a deliberately poetic style, "put it into verse" says the same thing more plainly.

8. 8
   verbfigurativelytransitive

   To instruct or educate someone thoroughly in a particular subject.

   The old steward versed the heir in every duty of the estate.

   A good guide will verse newcomers in the customs of the region.

   Similarschool, instruct, train, educate, tutor

   Note

   Most readers meet this meaning in the past participle. Someone is versed in the law, or well versed in a subject, which describes knowledge already gained. William Babington Maxwell's The Mirror and the Lamp (1918) has a woman who "was versed in the law." The active verb, as in versing someone in category theory, is far rarer and has a figurative, slightly bookish ring.

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