A discus is a heavy disc spun and thrown for distance. Throw the discus, the discus final, a two-kilogram discus.
The thrower spins one and a half times inside a circle to build speed, and it is thrown flat rather than lobbed. It is one of the oldest recorded events, and the ancient statue of the thrower is among the most copied images in art.
1noundiscusA heavy disc spun and thrown for distance.
“She spun round twice and threw the discus further than ever before.”
discus is a piece of equipment.
Latin discus comes from Greek diskos, a quoit. Disc, dish, desk and dais are all the same word.
Ancient Greek
δίσκος — disk, quoit, platter
Latin
discus
English, today
discus
+ throw 1656. From Latin discus, from Ancient Greek δίσκος (“disk, quoit, platter”). a doublet of dais and desk and disc and dish and disk and diskos.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA