[In earlier sense immediately repr. OF. courseur, L. cursōr-em, n. of action from currĕre to run: in later senses prob. directly f. COURSE v. or COURSE sb. + -ER1.]
† 1. A runner; one who runs in a race, a racer.
a. 1300. Cursor M., 267 (Cott.). Cursur [v.r. cursor, coursur] o werld man aght it call For almast it ouer-rennes all.
1652. Gaule, Magastrom., 309. A certain Courser, intending to try his speed at the Olympick games.
† 2. One who chases or pursues. Obs.
1590. R. Harvey, Pl. Perc., 16. The greatest coursers, and professed hunters of dumbe dogs.
1673. Wycherley, Gentl. Dancing-Master, I. ii. 15. If he cannot protect us from the Constable, and these midnight-Coursers, ’tis not a House for us.
† 3. Courser of bulls: a bull-baiter. Obs.
1599. Minsheu, Dial. Sp. & Eng. (1623), 20. I was once a courser of Buls, and I alwaies tooke pleasure in fierce Buls.
† 4. A disputant in the schools (in Oxford University): see COURSE v. 7 b. Obs.
1658. Wood, Life (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), I. 242. A noted sophister and a remarkable courser in the public schooles.
1688. Miége, Fr. Dict., Courser or Disputant in Schools.
5. One who practises the sport of coursing.
1781. P. Beckford, Hunting (1802), 29, note. Some coursers even pretend, that all not being of the fashionable colour, are curs, and not greyhounds.
1824. Byron, Juan, XVI. lxxx. Hunters bold, and coursers keen.
1870. Blaine, Encycl. Rur. Sports, § 1910. The fore-legs … are more important organs in the greyhound than many a courser imagines.
b. A dog used for coursing.
1600. Surflet, Countrie Farme, VII. xxix. 855. Collers hung with bels put about the dogs neckes which are called coursers.
1882. Daily News, 15 Feb., 4/6. A sale of greyhounds took place at Liverpool…. [The] famous courser Salamis brought 245 guineas.
1886. Pall Mall Gaz., 14 Dec., 6/1. They [some twenty greyhounds] are racers and not coursers.
6. A building stone used in forming a course.
1885. Blacklaw Quarry Price List, Coursers 6 in. by 6 in. 31/2d per lineal foot.
