Word
verve
US/ˈvɝv/
UK/vˈɜːv/
Definition
n. a special talent or style in writing.
n. a particular aptitude or distinctive flair in literary composition. This sense is no longer in active use.
Examples
“She has a lot of verve and always makes people laugh.”
“The young director brought a fresh verve to the classic play, making the old story feel new and exciting.”
“While the script was technically sound, the performance lacked the necessary verve to truly engage the audience and convey the emotional depth of the characters.”
Examples
simple
“She has a lot of verve and always makes people laugh.”
contextual
“The young director brought a fresh verve to the classic play, making the old story feel new and exciting.”
complex
“While the script was technically sound, the performance lacked the necessary verve to truly engage the audience and convey the emotional depth of the characters.”
Real-World Examples
“Fortunately, it’s not all grim worst-nightmare-ever stuff, thanks to a slyly witty script credited to Al Kaplan and Jon Kaplan, directed with impish verve by Danishka Esterhazy.” “The cast are professional dancers (plus singer David Bastidas), and Anabel Moreno, especially, has verve and stagey panache.” 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.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Synonyms
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/verve