1. Of low, common, or inferior quality: Delia's wool dress was coarse compared to her sister's silk dress.
2. Lacking refinement in manners or behavior: The dancing after the soccer team's victory was coarse, to say the least.
3. Vulgar or indecent; such as, coarse language: During the TV interview, the star player used coarse language toward the reporters, and they were offended.
4. Consisting of large particles; not fine in texture; including sand: Sara and Eugenia were disappointed when they discovered that the beach consisted of coarse gravel instead of sand.
5. Rough, especially to the touch: The cloth napkins handed out to the guests were not soft but rather coarse; particularly when anyone wiped his or her mouth.
6. Etymology: from cors, "ordinary", probably an adjective use of the noun cours, originally referring to "rough cloth for ordinary wear".

Coarse is believed to have come from "course", which came from Latin cursus, "a running race" or "course", from curs- past participle stem of currere, "to run".

It developed a sense of "rude" in about 1510 and included the meaning of "obscene" in about 1711.