Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary - discourse

 I. noun  Etymology: Middle English discours, from Medieval Latin & Late Latin discursus; Medieval Latin, argument, from Late Latin, conversation, from Latin, act of running about, from discurrere to run about, from dis- + currere to run — more at car  Date: 14th century  1. archaic the capacity of orderly thought or procedure ; rationality  2. verbal interchange of ideas; especially conversation  3.  a. formal and orderly and usually extended expression of thought on a subject  b. connected speech or writing  c. a linguistic unit (as a conversation or a story) larger than a sentence  4. obsolete social familiarity  5. a mode of organizing knowledge, ideas, or experience that is rooted in language and its concrete contexts (as history or institutions) critical ~  II. verb  (~d; discoursing)  Date: 1559  intransitive verb  1. to express oneself especially in oral ~  2. talk, converse  transitive verb archaic to give forth ; utter  • ~r noun