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Verve   /vərv/   Listen
noun
Verve  n.  Excitement of imagination such as animates a poet, artist, or musician, in composing or performing; rapture; enthusiasm; spirit; energy.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Verve" Quotes from Famous Books



... subject not one mind, but several; he becomes not one poet, but many; for each actor in his drama has a share, and an important share, in the lyrical estro to which he gives birth. This it is which has imparted any verve, variety, or dramatic character they possess, to the ballads contained in this production. Turpin I look upon as the real songster of "Black Bess;" to Jerry Juniper I am unquestionably indebted for a flash melody which, without his hint, would ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... art had the defects of its qualities. Its spiritual ecstasy once conventionalized and reduced to a formula led to unreality, and, if not to untruth, at least to an unwholesome ignoring of a part of truth. There was, therefore, an inevitable reaction to the naturalism described with such verve and gusto by Fra Lippo Lippi. But this is, after all, social history in terms of art, and to Browning what has happened in painting is of value chiefly as showing concretely what has happened ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... little verve into this thing!' he roars; an' pullin' his guns he begins shakin' the loads out of 'em ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis

... affinity between the two men. My mother, who was greatly attached to Francis Balfour, said once to Sir M. Foster, "He has not got the dash and verve, but otherwise he reminds me curiously of what my husband was in his 'Rattlesnake' days." "How strange," replied Sir Michael, "when he first came to the front, Lankester wrote asking me, 'Who is this man Balfour you are always talking about?' and I answered, 'Well, I ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... visible in all their distinctness from the beginning, as all those who have read the introductory chapters will readily admit. And the same lines were to be followed with an undeviating fixity of artistic purpose and with unfailing verve and spirit to the last. 'The Prodigious Adventures of Tartarin,' 'Tartarin on the Alps,' and 'Port-Tarascon,' form a trilogy; and I know of no other example in modern French literature of so long and so well sustained a joke. How is it then that we never grow tired ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern -- Volume 11 • Various


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