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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

verve.

Enthusiasm, rapture, spirit, or vigour, especially of imagination such as that which animates an artist, musician, or writer, in composing or performing.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/vɜːv/Received-Pronunciation/vəːv/British, Southern, Standard/vɛɾv/Scotland/vøːv/Wales
  1. Enthusiasm, rapture, spirit, or vigour, especially of imagination such as that which animates an artist, musician, or writer, in composing or performing.

    uncountable
  2. A particular skill in writing.

    obsolete · uncountable
Where this word comes from

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.

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verve studioverve workshello, verve

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.