courses

The word “courses” means a somewhat dated or clinical way of referring to a woman's menstrual period. In plain terms, an older term for a woman's monthly period; more commonly you'll see "course" used for classes, routes, or meal stages (see the entry for "course").

“Courses” is pronounced KAW-sihz (/ˈkɔɹsɪz/ in IPA).

Here is “courses” used in a sentence: “The old medical text referred to menstruation simply as "her courses.".”

“Courses” is a noun.

“Courses” is a fairly common word in modern English.

No. Using courses to mean a woman's monthly period is dated and now rarely heard in everyday speech. It survives mainly in older medical texts and historical writing. Today most people simply say period, while menstruation or menses are the usual terms in a clinical or medical setting.

In this sense, courses draws on the older meaning of a course as a regular, repeating progression, like the course of a river or the changing seasons. Because menstruation follows a predictable monthly cycle, earlier writers referred to it as a woman's courses, emphasising its recurring, orderly nature.

Both refer to menstrual flow, but they differ in tone and era. Menses is the standard clinical term still used in medicine today. Courses is an older, largely archaic word for the same thing, once common in historical and medical writing but now mostly replaced by period or menstruation.