Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A running or rambling about.
  • noun Rambling or desultory talk; expatiation.
  • noun The act of discoursing or reasoning.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of discoursing or reasoning; range, as from thought to thought.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun obsolete, rare The action of hurriedly moving hither and thither.
  • noun rare, figuratively Digression.
  • noun rare Ratiocination.
  • noun philosophy step by step philosophic reasoning, as opposed to intuition (cf Iamblichus)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From discursiōn-, the stem of the Latin discursiō, from discurrō ("I run to and fro"); compare the English discurre, discurrent, discursation, and discurse.

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Examples

  • To omit that kind of discursion by which we proceed from any thing to any thing, there are of the other kind divers sorts.

    The Elements of Law Natural and Politic 1650

  • There is yet another kind of discursion beginning with appetite to recover something lost, proceeding from the present backward, from the thought of the place where we miss it, to the thought of the place from whence we came last; and from the thought of that, to the thought of a place before, till we have in our mind some place, wherein we had the thing we miss: and this is called REMINISCENCE.

    The Elements of Law Natural and Politic 1650

  • I had a bit of trouble following his discursion into the nature of temporal logic.

    Cosmic mysteries L. Lee Lowe 2009

  • I had a bit of trouble following his discursion into the nature of temporal logic.

    Archive 2009-05-01 L. Lee Lowe 2009

  • Any alteration can void the check at the discursion of the bank.

    Never Return | SciFi, Fantasy & Horror Collectibles 2009

  • The possibility of crazy-quilt discursion looms high, but Arax calmly sews the diverse stories and dramatic studies into coherence and poignancy.

    Cover to Cover 2009

  • The possibility of crazy-quilt discursion looms high, but Arax calmly sews the diverse stories and dramatic studies into coherence and poignancy.

    Cover to Cover 2009

  • That underscoring observer is Richard Todd, a longtime cultural critic with Montaigne-like tendencies toward gently acerbic discursion.

    Cover to Cover 2008

  • That underscoring observer is Richard Todd, a longtime cultural critic with Montaigne-like tendencies toward gently acerbic discursion.

    Cover to Cover 2008

  • Chinese television viewers were further mislead, during the ceremonies 'long discursion about the grandeur of the country's supposed 5,000 years of history by a fireworks display that was not the fireworks display that those in attendance at the National Stadium, the' Bird's Nest 'actually saw.

    Howard W. French: China's Ode to Legerdemain 2008

Comments

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  • Does the official dictionary definition really include "hither and thither"? That's awesome

    July 24, 2015