Characterized by moving from one thing to another; tending to digress or wander in thought or speech.
From 'discursus' (discourse, running around) plus '-ative' (having the quality of). It combines the Latin 'discurrere' with an adjective-forming suffix to describe the quality of moving between topics or wandering mentally.
This is a rare synonym for 'discursive,' but it emphasizes the 'digressive' quality even more strongly—a discursative speech is one that jumps around topics constantly. Medieval scholars distinguished between different levels of wandering thought, and this word captured the 'scattered but purposeful' version.
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