means A single line or stanza of poetry or song, or poetry itself as a form of metrical, structured writing.

from From Latin 'versus,' meaning a turning — the same word for a furrow in a plowed field. Picture the ox reaching the row's end and turning back: 'versus' was that turn. Roman scribes borrowed it for the moment a line of writing turns and begins anew, and so 'verse' has always carried that sense of language plowed into deliberate rows.