versed

1. 1
   adjective

   Knowledgeable or skilled in a subject, whether through study or practice, and familiar with how it works.

   Like a sailor who can read the sea the way others read a map.

   The new advisor is thoroughly versed in international tax law.

   Years aboard fishing boats left him versed in reading the weather.

   Similarknowledgeable, skilled, experienced, proficient, conversant

   Oppositeignorant, inexperienced, unfamiliar, unskilled

   Note

   An adjective that nearly always arrives with in and a subject after it: versed in law, in business, in the Scriptures. It usually takes an intensifier, today well versed or thoroughly versed. Milton's Paradise Regain'd (1671) has deep versed in books and shallow in himself. It compares with more and most rather than -er, and it seldom stands before a noun.

2. 2
   verb

   Past tense of verse.

   The mentor versed her apprentice in every step of the craft.

   Over the winter, she versed herself in classical poetry.

   Note

   A regular past form, the same for the simple past and the past participle: she versed herself, she had versed herself. Behind it stand several verbs. One means telling something in verse. Another, figuratively, means teaching someone about a subject, and that is the use that settled into the adjective for being knowledgeable. A colloquial versed meaning "competed against" (we versed them last week) is proscribed, so keep it out of careful writing.

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