ls it ‘versus’ or ‘verses?’

What does “versus” mean?

“Versus” means a competitive, opposing relationship between two entities. Often used to refer to legal, sports, or comparative contexts, versus is a preposition that sets up a potential bout or match between two entities.

In the world of sports, “Ali versus Frazier” is a famous boxing match in the 1960s, while “Yankees versus Red Sox” is a legendary baseball rivalry that continues today. In a legal setting, a court case can be known as the name of a defendant versus an entity: “John Doe versus the state of New York,” for example. A story of “developers versus activists” sets the stage for a potential conflict or protest—as nouns and other entities can also be framed in a relationship through the use of this word. Lastly, “versus” can also refer to concepts. For example, “empathy versus greed” can refer to differing and intangible viewpoints.

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Conversely, what does “verses” mean?

“Verses” has nothing to do with conflict, interactions, or an opposing force. Rather, it refers to lines of text in poetry or song lyrics. These contribute to the structure and rhythm of the piece. Hymnals contain verses related to spirituality and religion, for example.

Songs are comprised of both lyrics and verses, but lyrics also refer to the chorus, which comprises the same group of verses that repeat often in the song. For example, here are the first four stanzas of “Camptown Races”:

The Campptown ladies sing this song,
Doo-da, Doo-da
The Camptown racetrack’s five miles long
Oh, de doo-da day

Goin’ to run all night
Goin’ to run all day
I bet my money on a bob-tailed nag
Somebody bet on the gray

Oh, the long-tailed filly and the big black horse,
Doo-da, doo-da
Come to a mud hole and they all cut across,
Oh, de doo-da day

Goin’ to run all night
Goin’ to run all day
I bet my money on a bob-tailed nag
Somebody bet on the gray

These lyrics are grouped in lines of four. The stanzas that begin “Goin’ to run all night” are the chorus, while the different lyrics in stanzas 1 and 3 are verses.

In poetry, verses are also grouped together in stanzas—such as in the following poem by Mary Oliver, “The Owl”:

Last night the owl bunched in the tree
outside our window. Softly he boomed,
and then again, and again, and then was gone,
and not once did we think of the god

of plunge and blood, of iron mouths.
No, we thought, if we thought
of anything, of the god of pleasure and good luck—
the god of a happy life. Then we drifted away to sleep

over the fields, softly, on our own dark wings.

You can see how the verses are arranged, first in groups of four, and then the last line as its own independent stanza. This conveys the differing viewpoints of the speaker, who begins with an observation (the titular owl) and then draws her own interpretations, before ending with a conclusion that resides on its own for a sense of drama. Grouping verses in these stanzas is another aspect of adding impact to the meaning of a song or poem, and a way to experiment with poetic forms.

In essence, “verses” belong to the creative realm of literature or music, representing lines or stanzas, while “versus” conveys the idea of opposition or comparison between two parties. Whenever you’re discussing or presenting a comparison between two things, be it in legal documentation, sports analysis, or any situation where a clear differentiation or competition between two entities is at play, “versus” is your go-to term. For more tips on how to keep your writing clear and avoid issues, check out how to use quotation marks in your writing, whether you can end a sentence in a preposition, or seeing the difference between the similarly-spelled “lightning” versus “lightening.”