versify

[ vur-suh-fahy ]

verb (used with object)

, ver·si·fied, ver·si·fy·ing.

1. to relate, describe, or treat (something) in verse.
2. to convert (prose or other writing) into metrical form.

verb (used without object)

, ver·si·fied, ver·si·fy·ing.

1. to compose verses.

versify

/ ˈvɜːsɪˌfaɪ /

verb

1. tr to render (something) into metrical form or verse
2. intr to write in verse

Derived Forms

• ˈversiˌfier, noun

Other Words From

• versi·fier noun
• un·versi·fied adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of versify¹

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English versifien, from Old French versifier, from Latin versificāre; verse, -ify

Word History and Origins

Origin of versify¹

C14: from Old French versifier, from Latin versificāre, from versus verse + facere to make

Example Sentences

So after his death, in winking homage, she versifies instead his medical woes.

From New York Times

The voices collected here elaborate and extend the mantras, such as Langston Hughes versifying his insistence that America live up to its myth, and James Baldwin defining protest as a duty.

From Washington Post

Preparing the text has been a process of “distillation, musicalizing some phrasings and versifying some lines.”

From Los Angeles Times

Paraphrased and versified, some of Hardwick’s letters, along with her spoken words from that supposedly merry phone call of June 25, 1970, would find their way into the book, without her permission.

From The New Yorker

Its prose accretes the oracular weight of a holy text as it evokes the genesis of Little Boy’s lonely consciousness, and it exempts itself from pedestrian laws of punctuation to support the versifying rhythm.

From The New Yorker