Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A writer of poems.
  • noun One who is especially gifted in the perception and expression of the beautiful or lyrical.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who composes or indites a poem: an author of metrical compositions.
  • noun One skilled in the art of making poetry, or of metrical composition; one distinguished by the possession of poetic faculties or susceptibilities; one endowed with the gift and power of imaginative invention and creation attended by corresponding eloquence of expression, commonly but not necessarily in a metrical form.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One skilled in making poetry; one who has a particular genius for metrical composition; the author of a poem; an imaginative thinker or writer.
  • noun See under Laureate.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A person who writes poems.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a writer of poems (the term is usually reserved for writers of good poetry)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old French poete, from Latin poēta, from Greek poiētēs, maker, composer, from poiein, to create; see kwei- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French poete, from Latin poēta ("poet, author"), from Ancient Greek ποιητής (poiētēs, "creator, maker, author, poet"), from ποιέω (poieō, "I make, compose"), from Proto-Indo-European *kʷoywo- (“making”), from base *kʷwey- (“to make”).

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Examples

  • POOR MALONE! if he had ever heard the old adage, that “_none but a poet should edit a poet_,” he would have saved his midnight oil, and solicited a ray from

    The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor Volume I, Number 3

  • The Poetry of Kevin Davies___(ragline)___Kurdish Globe: Reflections of a Kurdish poet--Part III___(ragline)___Kurdish Globe: Reflections of a Kurdish poet--Part II___(ragline)___Kurdish Globe: Reflections of a Kurdish poet--Part I___(ragline)___The Gonzaga Bulletin: Li-young Lee: exterminator, restaurateur and poet___(ragline)___The Brooklyn Rail: Heaniverse___(ragline)___The Times-Picayune: New Orleans writer Peter Cooley finds poetry in the morning light___(ragline)___The Brooklyn Rail: A Poet Stretches___(ragline)___Democrat and Chronicle: A poet writes of the ghosts of his Rochester youth___(ragline)___Sacramento News & Review: Is B.L.

    Archive 2009-02-01 Rus Bowden 2009

  • The Poetry of Kevin Davies___(ragline)___Kurdish Globe: Reflections of a Kurdish poet--Part III___(ragline)___Kurdish Globe: Reflections of a Kurdish poet--Part II___(ragline)___Kurdish Globe: Reflections of a Kurdish poet--Part I___(ragline)___The Gonzaga Bulletin: Li-young Lee: exterminator, restaurateur and poet___(ragline)___The Brooklyn Rail: Heaniverse___(ragline)___The Times-Picayune: New Orleans writer Peter Cooley finds poetry in the morning light___(ragline)___The Brooklyn Rail: A Poet Stretches___(ragline)___Democrat and Chronicle: A poet writes of the ghosts of his Rochester youth___(ragline)___Sacramento News & Review: Is B.L.

    Archive 2009-02-01 Rus Bowden 2009

  • From ancient times in Greece and later in Rome, the leaves of the laurel tree were used to create crowns in honor of the greatest poets of their times, thus leading to the term poet laureate.

    The Poet Prince KATHLEEN MCGOWAN 2010

  • I had the title poet, and maybe I was one for a while.

    Leonard Cohen: Zen And The Art Of Songwriting 2009

  • The poet is a word craftsman, a master of language.

    Nobel Prize in Literature 1987 - Press Release 1987

  • As a poet, pure and simple, as a refined verse maker in all directions, Mr. Dunbar surpasses Mr. Whitman by far in the truest significance in the term poet, and he is justly assigned the first place among Negro poets.

    Twentieth Century Negro Literature Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating to the American Negro Daniel Wallace [Editor] Culp

  • To understand this nonsense of poor Renzo’s, the reader must know that, amongst the lower orders in Milan, and still more in the country, the term poet did not signify, as among all educated people, a sacred genius, an inhabitant of Pindus, a votary of the Muses; it rather meant a humorous and even giddy-headed person, who in conversation and behaviour had more repartee and novelty than sense.

    Chapter XIV 1909

  • The title poet laureate - officially announced today as having been given to Carol Ann Duffy - owes its name to the laurels used by ancient Greeks to crown their most celebrated poets.

    Latest News Breaking News and Current News from the UK and World Telegraph 2009

  • "I had the title poet, and maybe I was one for a while," he says.

    unknown title 2009

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