Discuss

How to spell discuss

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce discuss

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does discuss mean?

1. verbTo talk about a subject in detail, exchanging ideas or opinions.

Discuss in a sentence

• The team met to discuss next year's budget.

• We should discuss the contract before signing anything.

Where does discuss come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin discutere, meaning literally 'to shake apart' or 'to dash to pieces', formed from dis- 'apart' and quatere 'to shake'. In the later Latin of the law courts that physical sense had drifted into something more figurative: to break a matter open, to examine and disperse the points of an argument. The past participle stem discuss- gave English the form we use today, arriving by way of Old French and legal Latin in the 1300s. Early English uses kept the legal flavour of investigating or sifting evidence before the modern sense of simply talking something over settled in. The doubled s at the end is the spelling trap; it echoes that Latin participle discussus, and the same quatere root quietly survives in 'concussion' and 'percussion', both of which still carry the original idea of a shake or a blow.

How the word is built

• dis- (apart)
• cuss (from Latin quatere/quassus: to shake)