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Webster’s Dictionary (1828)



20 words match “VERSIFY”

VERSIFY v. 3 definitions
To make verses. I'll versify in spite, and do my best. Dryden.
DIVERSIFY v.
es or aspects. Separated and diversified on from another. Locke. Its seven colors, that diversify all the face of nature. I. Taylor.
SUBDIVERSIFY v.
To diversify aggain what is already diversified. [R.] Sir M. Hale.
CHECKER v.
To variegate or diversify with different qualities, color, scenes, or events; esp., to subject to frequent alternations of prosterity and adversity. Our minds are, as it were, checkered with truth and falsehood. Addison.
COUNTERCHANGE v.
To checker; to diversify, as in heraldic counterchanging. See Counterchaged, a., 2. With-elms, that counterchange the floor Of this flat lawn with dusk and bright. Tennyson.
DOT v.
To mark or diversify with small detached objects; as, a landscape dotted with cottages.
FRECK v.
To checker; to diversify. [R. & Poet.] The painted windows, frecking gloom with glow. Lowell.
FRET v.
To ornament with raised work; to variegate; to diversify. Whose skirt with gold was fretted all about. Spenser. Yon gray lines, That fret the clouds, are messengers of day. Shak.
INLAY v.
or the like, in a groundwork of some other material; to form an ornamental surface; to diversify or adorn with insertions. Look,how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold. Shak. But these things are . . . borrowed by the monks to inlay their story. Milton.
INTERSPERSE v.
To diversify or adorn with things set or scattered at intervals; to place something at intervals in or among; as, to intersperse a book with pictures. Which space is interspersed with small islands and rock. Cook.
MAKE v.
To compose verses; to write poetry; to versify. [Archaic] Chaucer. Tennyson. To solace him some time, as I do when I make. P. Plowman. To make as if, or To make as though, to pretend that; to make show that; to make believe (see under Make, v. t.). Joshua and all Israel made as if they were beaten before them, and fled…
PAINT v.
Fig.: To color, stain, or tinge; to adorn or beautify with colors; to diversify with colors. Not painted with the crimson spots of blood. Shak. Cuckoo buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight. Shak.
POETIZE v.
To write as a poet; to compose verse; to idealize. I versify the truth, not poetize. Donne.
RIMEY v.
To compose in rhyme; to versify. [Obs.] [Lays] rimeyed in their first Breton tongue. Chaucer.
TRANSPROSE v.
To change from prose into verse; to versify; also, to change from verse into prose. [Obs.] Dryden.
VARIEGATE v.
To diversify in external appearance; to mark with different colors; to dapple; to streak; as, to variegate a floor with marble of different colors. The shells are filled with a white spar, which variegates and adds to the beauty of the stone. Woodward.
VARIEGATION n.
The act of variegating or diversifying, or the state of being diversified, by different colors; diversity of colors.
VERSE v.
To make verses; to versify. [Obs.] It is not rhyming and versing that maketh a poet. Sir P. Sidney.
VERSIFICATION n.
The act, art, or practice, of versifying, or making verses; the construction of poetry; metrical composition.
WATER v.
t and calender, as cloth, so as to impart to it a lustrous appearance in wavy lines; to diversify with wavelike lines; as, to water silk. Cf. Water, n., 6.