vers libre

[ vair lee-bruh; French ver lee-bruh ]

noun

1. free verse.

vers libre

/ vɛr librə /

noun

1. (in French poetry) another term for free verse

Word History and Origins

Origin of vers libre¹

Borrowed into English from French around 1915–20

Example Sentences

The elder poet was presented with a small stone casket full of poems written by the younger men, poems that struck him as “word problems”: incomprehensibly Modern, most of them in vers libre.

From The New Yorker

From the French symbolist poet Paul Fort she learned a technique of writing "polyphonic prose" – prose which used the different voices of poetry, such as "metre, vers libre, assonance, alliteration, rhyme and return".

From The Guardian

Most of our native vers libre sounds like a ton of coal falling through too small an aperture in the sidewalk.

From Project Gutenberg

For all I know, Zipp is a poet—his smile is lyrical, and in his roving eyes there is a suggestion of vers libre.

From Project Gutenberg

But the founders of the vers libre, I am told, had never heard of this book.

From Project Gutenberg