COURSES Synonyms: 243 Similar and Opposite Words

courses 1 of 2

noun

plural of course

as in procedures

a way of acting or proceeding the president's usual course has been to obtain advice from several people and then make up his own mind

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Relevance

as in classes

a series of lectures on a subject a course on American history from the colonial period to the present

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as in processes

a usually fixed or ordered series of actions or events leading to a result set out on the course that would lead to a college degree

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as in routes

the direction along which something or someone moves the river follows a southeasterly course to the ocean

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as in canals

an open man-made passageway for water the Erie Canal was replaced by a much larger course, the New York State Barge Canal

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courses

2 of 2

verb

present tense third-person singular of course

as in tracks

to go after or on the track of after coursing the conspirators for months, the federal agents closed in and made the arrests

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as in traverses

to make one's way through, across, or over once the threat of terrorism became apparent, fighter jets began coursing that corridor on a daily basis

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as in races

to proceed or move quickly racehorses coursing down the track

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of courses

Noun

Advertisement The golf course is 106 years old, and its miniature golf course, which opened later in 1931, is one of the oldest continually operating miniature golf courses in the United States. — Rebecca Schneid, Time, 20 Oct. 2026 Three dedicated Claude courses progress from basic prompting and research to reusable Skills, integrations, and multi-step AI workflows. — Stackcommerce Team, PC Magazine, 20 Oct. 2026 According to a 2026 survey funded by a high school trades group and conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago, 1 in 6 students reported trying to enroll in trades courses but being turned down due to a lack of space. — P.r. Lockhart, Hartford Courant, 18 Oct. 2026 Buly is hosting free calligraphy courses in its Central boutique in Hong Kong and in Hong Kong, The Louis is updating two galleries to explore the houses’ love of Art Deco and its ties with China. — Denni Hu, Footwear News, 16 Oct. 2026 Now, students can take courses focused on fields such as sports analytics, media, law and marketing while exploring a variety of extracurricular opportunities. — Nick Caloway, CBS News, 16 Oct. 2026 One profile advertises $29-per-month online courses on how to make money through AI content. — Mia Sato, The Verge, 15 Oct. 2026 In one study, older adults took three courses, such as Spanish or painting, in a setting designed to mimic the rich educational environment of younger adults. — Julia Eskins, Vogue, 14 Oct. 2026 The nine courses move between drink and dish, from a Sundarban honey mead with cotton candy to a Tooyamalli rice cocktail with clarified rasam, whiskey and rice foam, served alongside a Gunpowder Idli filled with pepper crab and caviar. — Karina Acharya, Condé Nast Traveler, 12 Oct. 2026

Verb

What could be a stock campus ice-queen role is subverted throughout the season, through the empathy for the character that courses through her performance. — Rebecca Alter, Vulture, 27 July 2026 The same love of equality and freedom that courses through the Declaration motivated her white great-grandmother to campaign for suffrage and her African American grandfather to found a chapter of the NAACP in the Jim Crow South. — Michael Kazin, The Atlantic, 3 June 2026 And about the obsession that courses through dozens of countries on the continent. — Henry Bushnell, New York Times, 3 June 2026 But Open, Heaven also courses with youth’s great agony, the cruelty that learning to love should be inexorably followed by learning to grieve its undoing. — Gabrielle Bellot, Literary Hub, 27 Feb. 2026 Such is the power of cachaça, the essential and irresistible Brazilian sugar cane spirit that courses through each round of tropical cocktails passed across the bar. — Elazar Sontag, Washington Post, 26 Feb. 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for courses

Noun

The demonstration was part of a series of tests intended to validate the procedures, networks, and interfaces required to operate the Stingray from a carrier.

— Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 20 Oct. 2026
Partners are left to navigate this morass of funding sources, each with their own procedures, timelines, and conditions.

— Claas Mertens, Foreign Affairs, 19 Oct. 2026

Definition of procedures

Noun

By the 2000s scientists had detected thousands of GRBs, and researchers suspected they were being created by two classes of objects.

— Robin George Andrews, Scientific American, 20 Oct. 2026
Atlanta Technical College said the campus was secured after the incident and that classes and operations resumed.

— CBS News Atlanta Digital Team, CBS News, 20 Oct. 2026

Definition of classes

Noun

Zygielbaum says his election processes won't change either way.

— Miles Parks, NPR, 22 Oct. 2026
In March 2025, a group of inmates filed a class-action lawsuit accusing the government of failing to follow the proper administrative processes before changing the prison policy.

— Julian Mark, Washington Post, 21 Oct. 2026

Definition of processes

Noun

One of the first to try on that hat was the agency's Perseverance rover on Mars, which used machine learning to plan and complete its first drive on the Red Planet using routes mapped out by generative AI in December 2025.

— Josh Dinner, Space.com, 16 Oct. 2026
Throughout the war, Russia has repeatedly bombarded Ukraine’s Black Sea and Danube river ports, leaving Kyiv increasingly reliant on alternative routes to get its grain exports to markets in Africa and the Middle East.

— ABC News, ABC News, 16 Oct. 2026

Definition of routes

Noun

In antiquity, Rome’s aqueducts and China’s canals and flood-control works were the pipelines of centuries of hegemony.

— NIALL FERGUSON, Foreign Affairs, 20 Oct. 2026
Much of it flows through the Central Arizona Project, the series of canals that run from the river to the Phoenix and Tucson areas.

— Ian James, Los Angeles Times, 16 Oct. 2026

Definition of canals

Verb

The Wesleyan Media Project, a group of experts that tracks political propaganda in campaigns, identified at least 220 ads produced or enhanced with artificial intelligence by candidates or political action committees this election cycle.

— Anagilmara Vílchez, NBC news, 23 Oct. 2026
As of Friday morning, nearly 21 million Americans have already cast ballots in the midterm elections, according to the University of Florida's Election Lab, which tracks voting by mail and in person.

— A Martínez, NPR, 23 Oct. 2026

Definition of tracks

Verb

In just over eight hours, the train traverses Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska, beginning with the towns of Naperville, Princeton, and Galesburg, Illinois.

— Lauren Dana Ellman, Midwest Living, 15 Oct. 2026
The Carolinian line heads from Charlotte to Raleigh and up the coast to New York City, and the Piedmont line traverses North Carolina.

— Eva Flowe October 9, Charlotte Observer, 9 Oct. 2026

Definition of traverses

Verb

The high pressure air in the Great Basin races downhill to the coast.

— Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 15 Oct. 2026
These days, the market is awash in retailers and consumer plays that are leaking market cap as every investment dollar races out into the AI trade.

— Josh Brown,Sean Russo, CNBC, 8 Oct. 2026