discursive
adjUK /dɪsˈkɜː(ɹ)sɪv/
Etymology Borrowed from Middle French discursif, formed from the stem of Latin discursus and the suffix -if, and in part borrowed from Medieval Latin discursivus. By surface analysis, discourse + -ive.
› Of or concerning discourse.
1
Of speech or writing Tending to digress from the main point.
- This period had long since passed; the discursive reading, the enlightened discourse of her grandfather, had cast her mind in a different mould to the usual superstition of her country; but faith and love were only more pure and perfect in a soul too innocent not to be religious.1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 185:
- This means, at times, long and perhaps overly discursive discussions of other taxa.1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page viii:
2
Human sciences, Philosophy, Sciences Using reason and argument rather than intuition.
- Derived terms
- antidiscursive, counterdiscursive, cyberdiscursive, discursively, discursiveness, discursivity, interdiscursive, macrodiscursive, metadiscursive, microdiscursive, nondiscursive, transdiscursive, undiscursive
- Related terms
- discourse