A cursor is a moving placement or pointer that indicates a position. English-speakers have used the term with this meaning since the 16th century, for a wide variety of movable or mobile position-markers.

The literal meaning of the original Latin word cursor expresses the idea of someone or something that runs. Especially in the plural, Cursores 'runners', it was the name of certain functions, originally messengers. Cursor was also a Roman cognomen used by gens Papiria.

The word cursor may refer to any of the following:

• Cursor (slide rules)
• Cursor (typewriters)
• Cursor (computers)
• Cursor (databases)
• Cursor (magazine) was also the name of an early computer-based "magazine" that was distributed on cassette in the late 1970s. Each "issue" contained programs, utilities, and games and was a forerunner of today's computer magazines that come packaged with CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs. Cursor was produced for users of the Commodore PET.