cursor [ME] Nowadays we call the movable indicator on our computer screen the cursor. In medieval English a cursor was a running messenger: it is a borrowing of the Latin word for ‘a runner’, and comes from currere ‘to run’. From the late 16th century cursor became the term for a sliding part of a slide rule or other instrument, marked with a line for pinpointing the position on a scale that you want, the forerunner of the computing sense. Currere is the source of very many English words including course [ME] something you run along; concourse [LME] originally a crowd who had ‘run together’; current [ME] originally meaning ‘running, flowing’; discursive [L16th] running away from the point; excursion [L16th] running out to see things; intercourse [LME] originally an exchange running between people; and precursor [LME] one who goes before; as well as supplying the cur part of concur [LME]; incur [LME]; occur [LME] (from ob- ‘against’); and recur [ME]. See also corridor.