Pronunciations (6)
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/ˈdɪs.kɔːs/
Pronunciation notes
- Received-Pronunciation
- mainly
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/ˈdɪs.kɔːɹs/
Pronunciation notes
- General-American
- mainly
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/ˈdɪs.koː(ɹ)s/
Pronunciation notes
- mainly
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/dɪsˈkɔːs/
Pronunciation notes
- Received-Pronunciation
- mainly
-
/dɪsˈkɔːɹs/
Pronunciation notes
- General-American
- mainly
-
/dɪsˈkoː(ɹ)s/
Pronunciation notes
- mainly
Noun
Verbal exchange, conversation.
Usage- Archaic
- Uncountable
- Examples
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More examples (2)
UUho when he ſhal embrace you in his arms UUil tell how many thouſand men he ſlew. And when you looke for amorous diſcourſe, Will rattle foorth his facts of war and blood: […]
Two or three of the gentlemen sat near him, and I caught at times scraps of their conversation across the room. At first I could not make much sense of what I heard; for the discourse of Louisa Eshton and Mary Ingram, who sat nearer to me, confused the fragmentary sentences that reached me at intervals.
Expression in words, either speech or writing.
Usage- Uncountable
- Examples
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More examples (1)
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.
A conversation.
Usage- Countable
- Examples
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More examples (1)
It ſeems, the Minds of theſe People are ſo taken up with intenſe Speculations, that they neither can ſpeak, nor attend to the Diſcourſes of others, without being rouzed by ſome external Taction upon the Organs of Speech and Hearing; for which reaſon, thoſe Perſons who are able to afford it always keep a Flapper (the Original is Climenole) in their Family, as one of their Domeſticks, nor ever walk abroad or make Viſits without him.
A formal lengthy exposition of some subject, either spoken or written.
Usage- Countable
- Examples
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The preacher gave us a long discourse on duty.
Any rational expression, reason.
Usage- Countable
- Examples
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Sure he that made us with such large discourse, / Looking before and after, gave us not / That capability and godlike reason / To rust in us unused.
difficult, strange, and harsh to the discourses of natural reason
An institutionalized way of thinking, a social boundary defining what can be said about a specific topic (after Michel Foucault).
Usage- Countable
- Examples
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More examples (3)
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.
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.
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.
Lengthy, often heated debate over controversial subject matter, particularly within fandom and activist spaces. Sometimes rendered as a proper noun with the definite article (i.e. "the Discourse").
Usage- Internet
- Uncountable
- Examples
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We all know — or know now — the Internet meme known as “The Discourse,” which became popular on the social media site Tumblr in April of last year.
More examples (1)
Nobody will ever know if Gene Roddenberry would hate DS9 had he lived to see it, but the controversy was patient zero for the arguments that define modern Star Trek discourse.
...needless to say, the small-scale nature of these controversies provides a window into who the true 'snowflakes' are when it comes to Doctor Who discourse.
Dealing; transaction.
Usage- Countable
- Obsolete
- Uncountable
- Examples
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Good Captain Bessus, tell us the discourse / Betwixt Tigranes and our king, and how / We got the victory.
Verb
To engage in discussion or conversation; to converse.
Usage- Intransitive
To write or speak formally and at length.
Usage- Intransitive
To debate.
Usage- Obsolete
- Transitive
To exercise reason; to employ the mind in judging and inferring; to reason.
- Examples
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While he discours'd on heaven's mysterious The world's original, and nature's cause
To produce or emit (musical sounds).
Usage- Obsolete
- Transitive
- Examples
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More examples (1)
Hamlet. […] Will you play upon this pipe? […] It is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages with your fingers and thumbs, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music.
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.
More examples (1)
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.
Noun
extended verbal expression in speech or writing
- Broader terms
an address of a religious nature (usually delivered during a church service)
an extended communication (often interactive) dealing with some particular topic
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
- Examples
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the book contains an excellent discussion of modal logic
his treatment of the race question is badly biased
Verb
to consider or examine in speech or writing
- Synonyms
- Examples
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The author talks about the different aspects of this question
The class discussed Dante's ‘Inferno’
carry on a conversation
- Synonyms
talk at length and formally about a topic
- Synonyms
- Examples
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The speaker dissertated about the social politics in 18th century England