isr.co.ro : glossary Cursor A moveable shape or character on a display screen that indicates where a particular function will take place. If not otherwise specified, it's the position of the next change in screen content corresponding to your input. In most older programs, text insertion cursors are either square blocks the size of a single character or underlines, while mouse and pointer cursors are arrows. But with the triumph of the graphical user interface (GUI), cursors come in an ever-growing variety of shapes and sizes.