It was a birthday for one of the boys last week. We had it at one of those ‘laser tag’ places. It was quite fun, I must say — I found it quite easy to get into Predator mode.

Between games, I listened to the boys playing air hockey, and I kept hearing the new verb ‘to verse’.

“I’m next,” said one boy.
“No,” said another. “I’m versing him next.”

It would appear that to verse someone is to compete against them in a game or contest. I’ve only been hearing it in the last few years, only among schoolkids. Apparently they’ve backformed it from Latin versus (against), the little dickenses. It make sense though. Normally you’d hear ‘versus’ in a situation like ‘X vs. Y’. By coincidence, this sounds like 3rd person singular ‘verses’, and the kids have inferred the infinitive ‘to verse’, with its inflected form ‘versing’.

For comments: Would anyone say ‘I want to verse you’ where you are? Who would say it? How long ago did you hear it?