verse

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   familiarize through thorough study or experience

   I versed myself in Roman archeology.

2. 2
   noun

   A poetic form with regular meter and a fixed rhyme scheme.

   Restoration literature is well known for its carefully constructed verse.

3. 3
   noun

   Poetic form in general.

   The restrictions of verse have steadily been relaxed over time.

4. 4
   noun

   One of several similar units of a song, consisting of several lines, generally rhymed.

   Note the shift in tone between the first verse and the second.

5. 5
   verb

   To compose verses.

   It is not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet.

6. 6
   verb

   To tell in verse, or poetry.

   playing on pipes of corn and versing love

7. 7
   verb

   to educate about, to teach about.

   He versed us in the finer points of category theory.

8. 8
   verb

   To oppose, to compete against.

   When teams play now they "verse" each other. "Who did you verse?" (Forget "whom". It's long dead.) "We're versing you next." Pity the Latin scholar who might feel the loss of "versus" more keenly than many.

Etymology

From Middle English vers, from a mixture of Old English fers and Old French vers; both from Latin versus (“a line in writing, and in poetry a verse; (originally) row, furrow”), from vertō (“to turn around”).