ZebraWords.com - The Definition of 'Discursive', Synonyms of 'Discursive' & More on 'Discursive'

1. WordNet® 3.0 (2006)

discursive
    adj 1: proceeding to a conclusion by reason or argument rather
           than intuition [syn: dianoetic, discursive]
    2: (of e.g. speech and writing) tending to depart from the main
       point or cover a wide range of subjects; "amusingly
       digressive with satirical thrusts at women's fashions among
       other things"; "a rambling discursive book"; "his excursive
       remarks"; "a rambling speech about this and that" [syn:
       digressive, discursive, excursive, rambling]

2. The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48

Discursive \Dis*cur"sive\, a. [Cf. F. discursif. See
   Discourse, and cf. Discoursive.]
   1. Passing from one thing to another; ranging over a wide
      field; roving; digressive; desultory. "Discursive
      notices." --De Quincey.
      [1913 Webster]

            The power he [Shakespeare] delights to show is not
            intense, but discursive.              --Hazlitt.
      [1913 Webster]

            A man rather tacit than discursive.   --Carlyle.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. Reasoning; proceeding from one ground to another, as in
      reasoning; argumentative.
      [1913 Webster]

            Reason is her being,
            Discursive or intuitive.              --Milton.
      -- Dis*cur"sive*ly, adv. -- Dis*cur"sive*ness, n.
      [1913 Webster]

Thesaurus Results for discursive:

1. Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0

O-shaped, a fortiori, a posteriori, a priori, aberrant, aberrative, aimless, ambagious, analytic, backhanded, bright, by the way, categorical, circuitous, circular, circumforaneous, conceptive, conceptual, conditional, deductive, departing, desultory, deviant, deviating, deviative, deviatory, devious, dialectic, diffuse, digressing, digressive, divagatory, drifting, enthymematic, epagogic, episodic, errant, erratic, excursive, flitting, floating, footloose, footloose and fancy-free, fugitive, gadding, gypsy-like, gypsyish, helical, hypothetical, ideational, indirect, inductive, inferential, intellectual, intelligent, knowing, labyrinthine, landloping, long-winded, loose, maieutic, maundering, mazy, meandering, migrational, migratory, noetic, nomad, nomadic, not so dumb, oblique, orbital, out-of-the-way, planetary, prolix, rambling, ranging, rational, reasonable, roaming, rotary, round, roundabout, roving, sane, sensible, serpentine, shifting, snaky, sophic, soritical, spiral, straggling, stray, straying, strolling, strong-minded, swerving, syllogistic, synthetic, traipsing, transient, transitory, transmigratory, turning, twisting, understanding, undirected, vagabond, vagrant, veering, verbose, wandering, winding, windy, wordy, zigzag

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