verse
1 Americannoun
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(not in technical use) a stanza.
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a succession of metrical feet written, printed, or orally composed as one line; one of the lines of a poem.
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a particular type of metrical line.
a hexameter verse.
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a poem, or piece of poetry.
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metrical composition; poetry, especially as involving metrical form.
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metrical writing distinguished from poetry because of its inferior quality.
a writer of verse, not poetry.
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a particular type of metrical composition.
elegiac verse.
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the collective poetry of an author, period, nation, etc..
Miltonian verse;
American verse.
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one of the short conventional divisions of a chapter of the Bible.
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Music.
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that part of a song following the introduction and preceding the chorus.
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a part of a song designed to be sung by a solo voice.
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Rare. a line of prose, especially a sentence, or part of a sentence, written as one line.
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Rare. a subdivision in any literary work.
adjective
verb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
verb (used with object)
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a combining form extracted from universe, occurring as the final element in compounds with the sense “in the sphere or realm of”: Chaos is erupting in the Twitterverse right now. We try to stick with using the Linuxverse on our computers. A new publisher is big news in the writerverse.
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a combining form extracted from universe, used in forming names for a fictional world associated with a particular media franchise: the BTTF-verse of Back to the Future;
the Whoniverse of Doctor Who;
the BTTF-verse of Back to the Future;
the Vorkosiverse of the Vorkosigan Saga.
noun
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(not in technical usage) a stanza or other short subdivision of a poem
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poetry as distinct from prose
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a series of metrical feet forming a rhythmic unit of one line
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( as modifier )
verse line
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a specified type of metre or metrical structure
iambic verse
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one of the series of short subsections into which most of the writings in the Bible are divided
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a metrical composition; poem
verb
Related Words
Verse, stanza, strophe, stave are terms for a metrical grouping in poetic composition. Verse is often mistakenly used for stanza, but is properly only a single metrical line. A stanza is a succession of lines (verses) commonly bound together by a rhyme scheme, and usually forming one of a series of similar groups that constitute a poem: The four-line stanza is the one most frequently used in English. Strophe (originally the section of a Greek choral ode sung while the chorus was moving from right to left) is in English poetry practically equivalent to “section”; a strophe may be unrhymed or without strict form, but may be a stanza: Strophes are divisions of odes. Stave is a word (now seldom used) that means a stanza set to music or intended to be sung: a stave of a hymn; a stave of a drinking song. See poetry.
Other Word Forms
- underverse noun
Etymology
Origin of verse1
First recorded before 900; Middle English vers(e), fers “line of poetry, section of a psalm,” from Old French vers, Anglo-French verse, veers, and Old English fers, færs, fyrs, from Latin versus “a row, line (of poetry),” literally, “a turning,” equivalent to vert(ere), “to turn” (past participle versus; akin to -ward, worth 2
Origin of verse2
An Americanism dating back to 1980–85; shortening of versus ( def. )
Origin of -verse3
First recorded in 1980–85
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The audience seem to know every word - with the whole room reverberating to the declarative, "I don't need a boyfriend", that crops up in the second verse of Nice To Each Other.
From BBC
His minister father loathed rap, yet Jean teasingly and earnestly called himself “the preacher’s son,” filling his verses with biblical language that still shows up in “Quantum Leap.”
From Los Angeles Times
A couple of tunes veer in an alt-rock direction, such as “If I Leave,” which adopts the quiet verses/loud chorus structure of the ’90s to powerful effect.
There was a performance of the sixth verse of La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, as it was deemed to be more universal and less patriotic.
From BBC
It features an extra verse written from a female perspective, as sung by Dean, a recent Grammy winner.
From BBC
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
