Discourse

How to spell discourse

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce discourse

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does discourse mean?

1. nounWritten or spoken communication or debate, especially formal treatment of a subject.
2. verbTo speak or write at length and authoritatively about a topic.

Discourse in a sentence

• noun

  The conference raised the level of public discourse on climate policy.

• verb

  The professor would happily discourse on medieval trade for hours.

• noun

  Her thesis examines the discourse surrounding immigration in the media.

• verb

  He likes to discourse about wine whenever guests arrive for dinner.

Where does discourse come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin discursus, meaning 'a running about' or 'a running to and fro', which was the past-participle noun of discurrere, built from dis- 'apart, in different directions' and currere 'to run'. In late Latin the literal sense of running around shifted toward the figurative idea of ranging over a subject in speech, so discursus came to mean the act of reasoning through a topic. English took the word in the late 1400s through Old French discours, and the early meaning was simply the process of thinking or conversing at length. The same currere root still gallops through everyday relatives such as 'current', 'course', and 'occur', which is a handy reminder that the middle of discourse is spelled with the familiar word 'course'. Over time it settled into its modern senses of formal spoken or written treatment of a subject and, more broadly, communication and debate.

How the word is built

• dis- (apart, in different directions)
• course (from Latin cursus: a running, a course)