verve

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   an energetic style

   The artist has verve.

2. 2
   noun

   Enthusiasm, rapture, spirit, or vigour, especially of imagination such as that which animates an artist, musician, or writer, in composing or performing.

   His hands were strong and elegant; his experience of life evidently varied; his speech full of pith and verve; his manners forward, but perfectly presentable.

3. 3
   noun

   A particular skill in writing.

   If he be above Virgil, and is reſolv'd to follow his own Verve (as the French call it,) the Proverb will fall heavily upon him; Who teaches himſelf, has a Fool for his Maſter.

Etymology

Borrowed from French verve (“animation; caprice, whim; rapture; spirit; vigour; type of expression”), probably from Late Latin verva, a variant of Latin verba (“words; discourse; expressions; language”), the plural of verbum (“word”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *werh₁- (“to say, speak”). Doublet of verb and word.