cursusn.
/ˈkəːsəs/ The Latin word for course n.; occasionally used in medieval or technical senses, as
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a. A race-course, running-ground, or drive; also used spec. of a type of neolithic monument (see quot. 1963).
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b. A stated order of daily prayer; a ritual, or form of celebration.
c. An academic course or curriculum.
ΘΚΠ
society > education > teaching > means of teaching > [noun] > class or course
course1605
discipline1676
class1691
curriculum1824
cursus1875
1740 W. Stukeley Stonehenge viii. 35 The western branch..continues curving along the bottom of the hill, till it meets, what I call, the cursus.
1740 W. Stukeley Stonehenge ix. 41 About half a mile north of Stonehenge, across the first valley, is the cursus or hippodrom, which I discovered, August 6, 1723.
1832 A. E. Bray Let. in Descr. Part Devonshire (1836) I. ix. 164 For what purpose this avenue, or cursus, was used.
1865 T. McLauchlan Early Sc. Church xiv. 188 Whether they made use of any peculiar cursus or liturgy.
1875 J. McCosh Sc. Philos. xi. 94 The University Commissioners appointed in 1643 a Cursus for Aberdeen.
1883 Athenæum 17 Mar. 348/3 The line would have cut through the avenue and the cursus of Stonehenge.
1951 Field Archæol. (Ordnance Survey) (ed. 3) 18 Another feature which is now regarded as part of the henge complex is the extremely elongated earthwork of the type originally called a ‘cursus’ by Stukeley..because he believed that they were designed as racecourses.
1963 E. S. Wood Collins Field Guide Archaeol. ii. 138 A class of still enigmatic neolithic monuments are the cursūs... These are long parallel banks with outside ditches, with squared or curved ends, running across country often for long distances.
d. The regular varying cadences which mark the end of sentences and phrases, esp. in Greek and Latin prose.
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society > leisure > the arts > literature > prose > [noun] > writing of prose > period, etc.
clausec1440
period1579
clausula1900
cursus1904
1904 H. A. Wilson in Jrnl. Theol. Stud. 5 387 Prof. E. Norden has traced the use of the ‘cursus’ in Classical writers, Greek as well as Latin.
1910 Encycl. Brit. VIII. 304/1 The cursus or prose rhythm of the pontifical chancery of the 11th and 12th centuries.
1910 A. C. Clark (title) The cursus in mediaeval and vulgar Latin.
1959 H. J. Rose Outl. Class. Lit. vi. 188 Three rhythms found their way..into medieval Latin prose..where naturally accented syllables took the place of long ones. Hence the three ‘runs’ (cursus) as they were called.
Draft additions 1993
cursus honorum n. /ɒˈnɔːrəm/ [lit., ‘course of honours’] an established hierarchy of positions through which a person may advance in a profession, career, etc., originally in Anc. Rome leading to the consulship; hence, a succession of posts held on a course of advancement.
ΘΚΠ
society > authority > office > [noun] > hierarchy of advancement
cursus honorum1908
1908 H. S. Jones Roman Empire vii. 270 The tribunate and ædileship were abolished, or at any rate ceased to form alternative steps in the cursus honorum of the senator.
1959 B. North & R. North tr. M. Duverger Polit. Parties (ed. 2) i. iii. 160 To attain to the posts of real command, a slow cursus honorum must be completed; you have to be ‘apprenticed’ to the party.
1965 Mod. Law Rev. 28 517 By 1932 the cursus honorum had been established within the judiciary.
1970 Times 14 Mar. (Sat. Review) p. iv/7 Some might find it remarkable that such a cursus honorum—Dean of King's College London, Dean of Exeter, Dean of St. Paul's—should have fallen to so liberal a thinker.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1893; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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