discourse

Etymology

From Middle English discours, borrowed from Middle French discours (“conversation, speech”), from Latin discursus (“the act of running about”), from Latin discurrō (“run about”), from dis- (“apart”) + currō (“run”). Spelling modified by influence of Middle French cours (“course”). Doublet of discursus.

noun

1. (uncountable, archaic) Verbal exchange, conversation.
2. (uncountable) Expression in words, either speech or writing.
   Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse. Blackboard sketches, geological maps, diagrams of molecular structure, astronomical photographs, MRI images, the many varieties of statistical charts and graphs: These pictorial devices are indispensable tools for presenting evidence, for explaining a theory, for telling a story. 2012-03, Brian Hayes, “Pixels or Perish”, in American Scientist, volume 100, number 2, archived from the original on 2013-02-19, page 106
3. (countable) A conversation.
4. (countable) A formal lengthy exposition of some subject, either spoken or written.
   The preacher gave us a long discourse on duty.
5. (countable) Any rational expression, reason.
   difficult, strange, and harsh to the discourses of natural reason 1692, Robert South, A Discourse Concerning The General Resurrection On Acts xxiv. 15
6. (social sciences, countable) An institutionalized way of thinking, a social boundary defining what can be said about a specific topic (after Michel Foucault).
   Furthermore, it should be recalled from the previous chapter that criminological discourse of the 1930s deemed every woman a potential criminal, implicitly including the domestic woman. 2007, Christine L. Marran, Poison Woman: Figuring Female Transgression in Modern Japanese Culture, page 137
   But equally important to the emergence of uniquely African-American queer discourses is the refusal of African-American movements for liberation to address adequately issues of sexual orientation and gender identity. 2008, Jane Anna Gordon, Lewis Gordon, A Companion to African-American Studies, page 308
   Brown University's Friday Night Jews (FNJ) … began as an informal Shabbat dinner gathering in 2016, as a space for Jewish students who were feeling fed up with Hillel’s limitations regarding Israel/Palestine discourse, after the Brown/RISD Hillel rescinded sponsorship of a film screening by the Israeli nonprofit Zochrot, an organization that educates Jewish Israelis about the Nakba. 2019-7-3, Jess Schwalb, “Red Line Rebellion”, in Jewish Currents
7. (obsolete) Dealing; transaction.

verb

1. (intransitive) To engage in discussion or conversation; to converse.
2. (intransitive) To write or speak formally and at length.
3. (obsolete, transitive) To debate.
4. To exercise reason; to employ the mind in judging and inferring; to reason.
5. (obsolete, transitive) To produce or emit (musical sounds).
   Music discoursed on that melodious instrument, a Jew's harp, keeps the elfin women away from the hunter, because the tongue of the instrument is of steel. 1911, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, Volume II, Part II, Chapter V, p. 233
   Dahl's Silver Cornet Band, augmented for the occasion to the grand total of fourteen pieces, discoursed sweet—well, discoursed music; let us not be too particular as to the quality of it. 1915, Ralph Henry Barbour, chapter XXIII, in The Secret Play, New York: D. Appleton & Co., page 300