versifier
(ˈvɜːsɪfaɪə(r))
Forms: α. 4–5 versifiour, 5 -fyowre; 5 versefiour, -fyour. β. 5 versyfyer, -fyar, 6 vercyfyer, 5 vercifier, 5– versifier, 6 -fiar, 6, 8 -fyer; 5 versefier, 5–6 -fyer.
[a. AF. versifiur (13th c.), versifiour, OF. versefiere, -fierre (13th c.), versifieur (14th c.), f. versifier: see versify v. and -er.]
1. One who versifies or composes verses; a verser or verse-maker; a poet.
| α c 1340 Hampole Pr. Consc. 897 He suld fynd ful litel matere To mak ioy whilles he here duelles, Als a versifiour in metre þus telles. 1382 Wyclif Job Pref., The whiche thing versifioures more than a symple redere vnderstonden. 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. xvii. xci. (Bodl. MS.), It is seide þ{supt} versifiours likned þe lelye to mannes inwitte. a 1425 tr. Arderne's Treat. Fistula, etc. 4 Wherfore seiþ a versifiour,..‘lat werke ouercome thi worde, for boste lesseneþ gode lose’. c 1440 Promp. Parv. 508/2 Versifyowre (H. versyowre), versificator. |
| β 14.. Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 681 Hic versificator, a versyfyer. a 1450 Mankind 746 in Macro Plays 27 As a nobyll versyfyer makyth mencyon in þis verse. 1477 Earl Rivers (Caxton) Dictes 13 Omer was an auncient vercifier in Grece. a 1513 Fabyan Chron. vii. 405 Of this noble prynce a vercyfyer made these .ii. verses folowynge. 1567 Drant Horace, Ep. ii. ii. H iv, Euil versefyers mocked be, yet haue they to theire ioy. 1603 Daniel Def. Rhime Wks. (1717) 32 This Self-Love, whereunto we Versifiers are ever noted to be especially subject. 1670 Milton Hist. Eng. v. Wks. 1851 V. 227 Other pretious things,..describ'd in Malmsbury, tak'n..out of an old versifier, some of whose verses he recites. 1741 Watts Improv. Mind i. xvi. §1 More elevated language than the fondest critics have ever found in any of the Heathen versifiers either of Greece or Rome. 1789 Belsham Ess. I. xii. 232 Pope has often been stiled the best versifier in the English language. 1828 Harrovian 46 He was a good classic, and an excellent versifier. 1873 Symonds Grk. Poets x. 333 Those purely rustic poems which..have..been imitated by versifiers emulous of his gracefulness. |
2. With depreciative force: A mere or poor writer of verse(s); a rimester, a poetaster.
| 1531 Elyot Gov. i. xiii, Semblably they that make verses, expressynge therby none other lernynge but the craft of versifyeng, be..of auncient writers..onely called versifyers. 1581 Sidney Apol. Poetrie (Arb.) 28 Now swarme many versifiers that neede neuer aunswere to the name of Poets. 1589 Puttenham Eng. Poesie i. i. (Arb.) 19 The translator, who..may well be sayd a versifier, but not a Poet. 1642 Milton Apol. Smect. Wks. 1851 III. 262 Rather nice and humerous in what was tolerable, then patient to read every drawling versifier. 1652–62 Heylyn Cosmogr. iv. (1682) 85 Philip whom the Versifier (I do not say the Poet) called Philippus Hispanus. 1696 Phillips (ed. 5), Versifier, a maker of Verses, generally taken in an ill sense. 1781 Sir J. Reynolds Journ. Flanders Wks. 1797 II. 112 The modern versifiers,..carrying no weight of thought, easily fall into that false gallop of verse. 1821 Byron Diary Wks. (1846) 531/2 As different from an orator as an improvisatore or a versifier from a poet. 1880 M. E. Braddon Just as I am xi, She thought Byron an ephemeral versifier. |