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Verse   /vərs/   Listen
noun
Verse  n.  
1.
A line consisting of a certain number of metrical feet (see Foot, n., 9) disposed according to metrical rules. Note: Verses are of various kinds, as hexameter, pentameter, tetrameter, etc., according to the number of feet in each. A verse of twelve syllables is called an Alexandrine. Two or more verses form a stanza or strophe.
2.
Metrical arrangement and language; that which is composed in metrical form; versification; poetry. "Such prompt eloquence Flowed from their lips in prose or numerous verse." "Virtue was taught in verse." "Verse embalms virtue."
3.
A short division of any composition. Specifically:
(a)
A stanza; a stave; as, a hymn of four verses. Note: Although this use of verse is common, it is objectionable, because not always distinguishable from the stricter use in the sense of a line.
(b)
(Script.) One of the short divisions of the chapters in the Old and New Testaments. Note: The author of the division of the Old Testament into verses is not ascertained. The New Testament was divided into verses by Robert Stephens (or Estienne), a French printer. This arrangement appeared for the first time in an edition printed at Geneva, in 1551.
(c)
(Mus.) A portion of an anthem to be performed by a single voice to each part.
4.
A piece of poetry. "This verse be thine."
Blank verse, poetry in which the lines do not end in rhymes.
Heroic verse. See under Heroic.



verb
Verse  v. t.  (past & past part. versed; pres. part. versing)  To tell in verse, or poetry. (Obs.) "Playing on pipes of corn and versing love."



Verse  v. i.  To make verses; to versify. (Obs.) "It is not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Verse" Quotes from Famous Books



... marriage or other domestic festivals. After he has received the usual courtesies he produces the Wai, a book written in his own crabbed hieroglyphics or in those of his father, which contains the descent of the house from its founder, interspersed with many a verse or ballad, the dark sayings contained in which are chanted forth in musical cadence to a delighted audience, and are then orally interpreted by the bard with many an illustrative anecdote or tale. The Wai, however, is not merely a source ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... effect it. They would bind their Samson until they have scanned his limbs and thews. Incapable of understanding the first motions of freedom in themselves, they proceed to interpret the riches of his divine soul in terms of their own beggarly notions, to paraphrase his glorious verse into their own paltry commercial prose; and then, in the growing presumption of imagined success, to insist upon their neighbours' acceptance of their distorted shadows of 'the plan of salvation' as the truth of him in whom is no darkness, and the one condition of their acceptance ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald

... valeureux Lysis . . . avec un escabeau qu'il tient en main donne si rudement sur la teste de l'un de ses adversaires, qu'il en fait sortir la cervelle. Il en assomme encores deux autres: mais que peut-il faire contre tant de gens, & ainsi desarme qu'il est? Son corps perce comme un crible, verse un grand ruisseau de sang. En fin il se jette sur Lisandre, et bien que par derriere on luy baille cent coups de poignards, il le prend, et le souleve, prest a le jetter du haut en bas d'une fenestre, si tous les autres ensemble, en se jettant sur luy, ne l'en eussent empesche. ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman

... well as theirs for his cause, filled her with hopes for a happy life." Napoleon's life at that time was one long deification. Louis XIV. himself, the Sun-King, had never received more flattery in prose and verse. All the official poets had tuned their lyres to sing his marriage, and the Moniteur was full of dithyrambs. It also published a translation of an Italian cantata entitled, "La Jerogamia di Creta, Inno del Cavaliere Vincenzo Monti," which ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... thereupon she turned it more to her own supposed case; and believing Mrs. Jewkes had a design against her honour, and looking upon her as her gaoler, she thus gives her version of this psalm. But pray, Mr. Williams, do you read one verse of the common translation, and I will read one of Pamela's. Then Mr. Williams, pulling out his little pocket Common-Prayer-Book, ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson


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