Spanish and Portuguese word meaning 'course' or 'class', referring to an educational program or sequence of instruction. In English contexts, it appears in academic or educational materials related to Spanish or Portuguese-speaking institutions.
From Latin 'cursus' meaning 'a running' or 'course', derived from 'currere' meaning 'to run'. The metaphor of education as a 'course' or path to be run appears in many languages descended from Latin. The word entered Spanish and Portuguese through regular phonetic evolution from the Latin original.
The word 'curso' reveals how education has long been conceptualized as a journey or race to be completed - the same Latin root gives us English 'course', 'curriculum', and 'current', all suggesting movement along a path. It's fascinating that across Romance languages, learning is metaphorically understood as traveling from one point to another.
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