Verse

How to spell verse

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce verse

What does verse mean?

1. nounWriting arranged in lines with a rhythm or metre, or a single such line or stanza.
2. nounOne of the short numbered divisions of a chapter in the Bible or another religious text.

Verse in a sentence

• She wrote a short verse for the greetings card.

• The preacher read a single verse from the gospel.

• The song opens with a quiet verse before the chorus.

• Each verse in the chapter is marked with a small number.

Where does verse come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Verse comes from the Latin versus, which originally meant 'a turning' and then 'a furrow' or 'a row', built on the verb vertere, meaning 'to turn'. The image behind it is wonderfully concrete: a ploughman reaching the end of a furrow and turning the ox to begin a new line, just as a writer reaches the end of a line of poetry and turns back to start the next. From that sense of a row or line, Latin versus came to mean a single line of writing, especially metrical writing. The word passed into Old English directly from Latin and was reinforced later by Old French vers, settling into the spelling we use today. The same vertere root turns up across English in words like reverse, convert, and version, all of which keep the idea of turning.

How the word is built

• vers- (from Latin versus: a turning, a row, a line)
• silent -e