parcourse

[ pahr-kawrs, -kohrs ]

noun

1. an outdoor exercise track or course, especially for joggers, equipped with a series of stations along the way where one is to stop and perform a specific exercise.

Word History and Origins

Origin of parcourse¹

First recorded in 1970–75; partial translation of French parcours “course, route, circuit,” Old French: loan translation of Medieval Latin, Late Latin percursus, noun derivative of percurrere “to run through, hasten through”; the English sense reflects French parcours du combattant “military obstacle course,” or a like phrase; per-, course

Example Sentences

Descend to its shaggy banks and follow the canal — bushy with cattails, busy with turtles and staked out here and there by unbothered herons — and you’ll find easy escape from Georgetown’s mobs of shoppers — as Stephen Hansen put it last year, it’s “neither a city park nor a playground; not a parcourse nor a gym.”

From Washington Post

It is neither a city park nor a playground; not a parcourse nor a gym.

From Washington Post

Another profitable brawnstorm, this one invented in Europe and developed in the U.S. by Peter Stocker, is called Parcourse.

From Time Magazine Archive