- [countable, uncountable] (formal) a long and serious treatment or discussion of a subject in speech or writing
- discourse on something a discourse on issues of gender and sexuality
- He was hoping for some lively political discourse at the meeting.
Want to learn more?
Find out which words work together and produce more natural sounding English with the Oxford Collocations Dictionary app.
- [uncountable] (linguistics) the use of language in speech and writing in order to produce meaning; language that is studied, usually in order to see how the different parts of a text are connected
- spoken/written discourse
- discourse analysis
Word Originlate Middle English (denoting the process of reasoning): from Old French discours, from Latin discursus ‘running to and fro’ (in medieval Latin: ‘argument’), from the verb discurrere, from dis- ‘away’ + currere ‘to run’; the verb influenced by French discourir.
Check pronunciation:
discourse