Courses

How to spell courses

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce courses

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does courses mean?

1. nounSeries of lessons or programmes of study in a particular subject.
2. nounThe separate parts of a meal served in sequence.
3. nounThe routes or directions along which things travel.
4. verbMoves or flows rapidly and freely.

Courses in a sentence

• noun

  The college offers several evening courses in accounting.

• noun

  The wedding dinner featured five courses, ending with dessert.

• noun

  The navigator plotted alternative courses around the storm.

• verb

  Adrenaline courses through her body before the interview.

• noun

  She enrolled in two online courses to improve her coding skills.

• noun

  Between courses the waiter cleared the plates and refilled the glasses.

Where does courses come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the plural and verb form of 'course', which traces back to the Latin cursus, meaning 'a running' or 'a course', formed from currere, 'to run'. The same currere root gives English a whole family of words about movement, including 'current', 'occur', and 'excursion'. The word travelled into English through Old French 'cors' or 'course' in the 1300s, at first describing onward movement or the path along which something runs. From that core idea of a route or progression came the later senses: a programme of study (a set path through a subject), the parts of a meal served in sequence, and a stretch of ground for racing or golf. The spelling keeps the Latin 'cours' stem and is easily muddled with 'coarse', meaning rough, which has an entirely separate origin.

How the word is built

• cours- (from Latin cursus: a running, a path)
• -es (plural/third-person inflection)