V2 Vocabulary Building Dictionary
discursive
adjective
Definition: 1. long, rambling, and often straying from the subject at hand; 2. rational and logical, rather than intuitive
Synonyms: digressive, rambling, meandering, rational, logical
Antonyms: brief, concise, intuitive
Tips: Although discursive often describes a discourse that is rambling and perhaps includes extraneous information, it can sometime be used to talk about a coherent form of discourse. It is in fact related to the word discourse and comes from the Latin word discursus, or "to run about." You can think of something discursive as running about between many different, sometimes irrelevant, subjects. For a memory trick, note how discursive sounds like "discuss verses or versions." Think of discursive as discussing verse after verse of something, to the point that you are either very detailed and capturing everything in a logical manner, or you are going on and on and from one verse to a completely different verse or version of the story. See the related word desultory.
Usage Examples:
It was the writing professor's goal to study the discursive strategies of students writing academic essays. (rational)
A writer herself, she preferred long, discursive books that spent time on detail, rather than short, fast-paced novels with only the essentials. (rambling, digressive)
Writing in a journal in a discursive manner is deemed a therapeutic outlet for emotion. (meandering, rambling)
Her argument was discursive, and it was difficult to find fault with it. (logical, rational)
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