This week’s theme
Words originating in running

This week’s words
au courant
runnel
concur
palindrome
excursus

This week’s comments
AWADmail 776

Next week’s theme
Words that aren’t what they appear to be

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(ik-SKUHR-suhs, ek-)

MEANING:

noun:
1. A detailed discussion about a particular point, especially when added as an appendix.
2. A digression.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin excurrere (to run out), from ex- (out) + currere (to run). Ultimately from the Indo-European root kers- (to run), which also gave us car, career, carpenter, occur, discharge, caricature, au courant, concur, cark, discursive, and succor. Earliest documented use: 1803.

USAGE:

“Pushkin’s translator and editor Vladimir Nabokov included a 50-page excursus on the current state of knowledge about ‘Abram Gannibal’.”
Maggie Gee; Gannibal; New Statesman (London, UK); Aug 8, 2005.

See more usage examples of excursus in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: