Coarse

//kɔːs// adj

adj ·Common ·Middle school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    With a rough texture; not smooth.

    "Two hundred Sempſtreſſes were employed to make me Shirts, and Linen for Bed and Table, all of the ſtrongeft and coarſeſt kind they could get; which, however, they were forced to quilt together in ſeveral Folds, for the thickeſt was ſome degrees finer than Lawn."

  2. 2
    Composed of large particles.

    "coarse sand"

  3. 3
    Lacking refinement, taste or delicacy.

    "coarse manners"

  4. 4
    Unrefined. archaic
  5. 5
    Of inferior quality.

    "Due to the internet issue, the system generated an coarse audio file."

Adjective
  1. 1
    lacking refinement or cultivation or taste wordnet
  2. 2
    of textures that are rough to the touch or substances consisting of relatively large particles wordnet
  3. 3
    of low or inferior quality or value wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
granulatedinferiorroughthickuncouthvulgar

Example

More examples

"Soft wool is more expensive than coarse wool and both are superior to synthetics made of nylon."

Etymology

Adjectival use of course that diverged in spelling in the 18th century. The sense developed from '(following) the usual course' (cf. of course) to 'ordinary, common' to 'lacking refinement', with 'not fine, granular' arising from its application to cloth. Compare the development of mean.

Related phrases

coarse fishcoarse-grainedcoarse-grainingcoarse-handed

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.