верства

Etymology

Inherited from Old East Slavic вьрста (vĭrsta), from Proto-Slavic *vьrsta. Cognate with Russian верста́ (verstá), Old East Slavic вьрста (vĭrsta, “age, couple, age-mate, verst (measure of length)”), Old Church Slavonic врьста (vrĭsta, “age”), Bulgarian връст (vrǎst, “age”), Serbo-Croatian вр́ста (“row, type”), Slovene vŕsta (“row, string, type, age”) (tonal orthography), vȓst (“row, type”) (tonal orthography), Czech vrstva (“layer”), Slovak vrstva, Polish warstwa (“row, layer”), Upper Sorbian woršta. Cognate with Russian верте́ть (vertétʹ, “to turn”); per Vasmer, the initial meaning was "turning over of a plow". Further cognate with Lithuanian var̃stas (“verst, distance plowed at one time in one direction”) (also varsnà), participial vir̃stas, Oscan vorsus (“measure of arable land”, literally “turning over”), Latin versus (earlier vorsus), Sanskrit वृत्त (vṛttá, “round, twisted”). Compare Russian све́рстник (svérstnik, “coeval, age-mate”).