Coarse

How to spell coarse

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce coarse

What does coarse mean?

1. adjectiveHaving a rough, gritty, or thick texture rather than a fine or smooth one.
2. adjectiveRude, vulgar, or lacking refinement in speech or behaviour.

Coarse in a sentence

• The builder spread a layer of coarse sand before laying the slabs.

• His coarse jokes embarrassed everyone at the dinner table.

• The wool jumper felt coarse against her skin.

• The manager apologised for the coarse language in the email.

Where does coarse come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Coarse is a curious case because for much of its early life it was written exactly like its homophone 'course', and most scholars believe the two words are in fact the same word that later split apart in spelling. In the 1400s 'cors' or 'course' could describe something that was ordinary, plain, or in the common run of things, and from that everyday sense it drifted toward meaning 'common in quality' and then 'rough or unrefined in texture'. By the 1500s the distinct spelling 'coarse' had begun to settle on the 'rough, crude' meaning, leaving 'course' for the idea of a path, a route, or a series. The origin is therefore native English rather than a fresh borrowing, even though the parent 'course' itself traces back through Old French to the Latin cursus, meaning 'a running'. The shared ancestry is precisely why coarse and course are so easily muddled on the page; the silver lining for a speller is that the rough meaning carries the extra 'a', which you can tie to the gritty 'a' in 'sand' or 'gravel'.

How the word is built

• coarse (single root adjective; no productive prefix or suffix)

Words that sound like coarse

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• course: The route or direction taken by something as it moves or develops.