[f. TRANS- 2 + VERSE sb.; cf. TRANSPROSE. (Orig. as a kind of pun or play on prec.)] trans. To turn into verse; to translate or render in verse.
[1671. Villiers (Dk. Buckhm.), Rehearsal, I. (Arb.), 31. I take a Book in my hand … if there be any Wit in’t,… I Transverse it; that is, if it be Prose, put it into Verse…, if it be Verse, put it into Prose.]
1672. [H. Stubbe], Rosemary & Bayes, 2. To pilfer from other men; and if they write in prose, he doth trans-verse them.
1732. Fielding, Debauchees, Prol. 10. Old worn-out Jokes … Transvers’d from Prose, perhaps transpros’d from Rhimes.
1881. Saintsbury, Dryden, viii. 159. Having taken the fancy to transverse some Arthurian stories.
