1. (n.) The power of the mind to reason or infer by running, as it were, from one fact or reason to another, and deriving a conclusion; an exercise or act of this power; reasoning; range of reasoning faculty.

2. (n.) Conversation; talk.

3. (n.) The art and manner of speaking and conversing.

4. (n.) Consecutive speech, either written or unwritten, on a given line of thought; speech; treatise; dissertation; sermon, etc.; as, the preacher gave us a long discourse on duty.

5. (n.) Dealing; transaction.

6. (v. i.) To exercise reason; to employ the mind in judging and inferring; to reason.

7. (v. i.) To express one's self in oral discourse; to expose one's views; to talk in a continuous or formal manner; to hold forth; to speak; to converse.

8. (v. i.) To relate something; to tell.

9. (v. i.) To treat of something in writing and formally.

10. (v. t.) To treat of; to expose or set forth in language.

11. (v. t.) To utter or give forth; to speak.

12. (v. t.) To talk to; to confer with.