The English word 'discourse' entered the language around 1340, from Old French 'discours,' which descended from Latin 'discursus' (a running about, a running to and fro, a conversation). The Latin verb 'discurrere' combines 'dis-' (apart, in different directions) and 'currere' (to run), creating the image of running in various directions — moving back and forth, covering ground from multiple angles.
The metaphor that underlies 'discourse' is conversation as locomotion. When people engage in discourse, they run back and forth — from one topic to another, from one speaker's position to another's, from premise to conclusion and back again. The image captures the dynamic, multi-directional quality of genuine discussion, which rarely proceeds in a straight line but instead ranges across a landscape of ideas.
In English, 'discourse' has had several overlapping senses throughout its history. The earliest was simply 'conversation' — the running back and forth of speech between people. By the fifteenth century, it also meant 'the process of reasoning' — running from premise to conclusion through a chain of argument. By the sixteenth century, it meant 'a formal treatment of a subject in speech or writing' — Machiavelli's 'Discourses on Livy' and Descartes's 'Discourse on Method
Michel Foucault's use of 'discourse' in the twentieth century gave the word its most influential modern meaning. For Foucault, a 'discourse' is not just a text or a conversation but a system of knowledge, power, and language that shapes what can be said, thought, and known about a subject. Medical discourse, legal discourse, political discourse — each constitutes a framework within which certain statements are possible and others are unthinkable. Foucauldian discourse analysis has become a major methodology in the humanities
The adjective 'discursive' preserves the original Latin sense of running about more faithfully than the noun 'discourse.' A discursive essay is one that ranges widely, moving from topic to topic without following a strict linear path. A discursive thinker is one whose mind runs in many directions. In philosophy, 'discursive reason' (step-by-step logical reasoning
In linguistics, 'discourse' has a technical meaning: a connected series of utterances or sentences forming a coherent text. 'Discourse analysis' studies how language functions above the level of the individual sentence — how sentences connect, how speakers take turns, how topics are introduced and developed, how power relationships are encoded in language patterns. This technical sense maintains the image of running: discourse is language in motion, language running from one utterance to the next.
The word's relationship to 'course' is transparent. A course is a path of running; discourse is running in multiple directions (dis-). Intercourse is running between (inter-). Recourse is running back (re-). Concourse is running together (con-). The Latin prefix system generates an entire vocabulary of motion from the single
'Discourse' has also been used as a verb since the sixteenth century, though this use is now somewhat archaic or formal: 'to discourse upon a subject' means to speak or write at length about it. Shakespeare used the verb frequently. The verbal form makes the running metaphor explicit: to discourse is to run through a subject, to cover its terrain by moving back and forth across it.
In the twenty-first century, 'discourse' has entered popular vocabulary through social media, where 'the discourse' refers (often ironically) to the ongoing public conversation about a topic, especially a contentious one. 'Did you see the discourse about X on Twitter?' This informal use preserves the ancient Latin image surprisingly well: social media discourse is genuinely a running about — chaotic, multi-directional, circling back on itself, covering the same ground from different angles.