Other forms: verses
A verse is one group of lines in a poem or song. The second verse, three verses, nobody knows the second verse.
In a song, verses change and the chorus repeats. Stanza is the technical term for a poem's verse. As an uncountable noun, verse means poetry as a form — written in verse, free verse, blank verse. In the Bible, a verse is one numbered sentence, which is why references give chapter and verse. Note versify; and that verse and prose are the two halves of all written language.
1nounverseOne group of lines in a poem or song.
“Everybody sings the first verse and mumbles the second.”
synonyms: stanza
2nounpoetryPoetry as a form of writing.
“The whole thing is written in verse and it works.”
verse is a unit of poetry.
Also accepted in games: stanza
Latin versus meant a furrow turned by a plough, from vertere, to turn — a line of writing is a line turned at the end, exactly as an ox turns at the field's edge. Ancient Greek called that back-and-forth style boustrophedon, ox-turning.
Proto-Indo-European
*wert-
Latin
versus — a line in writing, and in poetry a verse; (originally) row, furrow
Old French
vers
Old English
fers
Middle English
vers
English, today
verse
Built from
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”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA