[a. L. cursor runner, agent-n. from currĕre, curs- to run: cf. COURSER.
The Latin word occurs in the title of ‘Þe tretis þat men cals Cursor Mundi’ (Gött. MS.), ‘The Cursur o the world’ (Cott. MS.), of which it is said, l. 267,
| Cursur [v.r. Cursor, Coarsur] o werld man oght it call, | |
| For almost it ouer-rennes all.] |
† 1. A runner, running messenger. Obs.
[a. 1300: see above.]
1566. T. Stapleton, Ret. Untr. Jewel, III. 125. He went apace like a Cursor that telleth good news.
a. 1632. T. Taylor, God’s Judgem., II. iv. (1642), 53. He also kept cursors and messengers … to ride abroad.
2. A part of a mathematical, astronomical, or surveying instrument, which slides backwards and forwards.
1594. Blundevil, Exerc., VII. xii. (ed. 7), 666. Every one of these Transames or Cursours must be cut with a square hole … so as they may be made to run iust upon the staffe to and fro.
1641. W. Gascoigne. in Rigaud, Corr. Sci. Men (1841), I. 43. The lowest part of the cross is jointed, to separate it from the cursor on the ruler.
1736. R. Neve, City & C. Purchaser, Cursor, a little brass Ruler representing the Horizon: a Label.
1793. Wollaston, in Phil. Trans., LXXXIII. 139. The cursor, or moveable wire, in the micrometer-microscopes.
1874. in Knight, Dict. Mech.
ǁ 3. In mediæval universities, a bachelor of theology giving the courses of lectures upon the Bible which formed one of the necessary preliminaries to the doctorate.
