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terse
WORDNET DICTIONARY
Adjective terse has 1 sense
- terse(s = adj.all) crisp, curt, laconic - brief and to the point; effectively cut short; "a crisp retort"; "a response so curt as to be almost rude"; "the laconic reply; `yes'"; "short and terse and easy to understand" Derived form noun terseness1
CIDE DICTIONARY
terse, a. [L. tersus, p. p. of tergere to rub or wipe off.].
- Appearing as if rubbed or wiped off; rubbed; smooth; polished. [1913 Webster]"Many stones, . . . although terse and smooth, have not this power attractive." [1913 Webster]
- Refined; accomplished; -- said of persons. Massinger. [1913 Webster]
- Elegantly concise; free of superfluous words; polished to smoothness; as, terse language; a terse style. [1913 Webster]"Terse, luminous, and dignified eloquence." [1913 Webster]"A poet, too, was there, whose verse
Was tender, musical, and terse." [1913 Webster]"“In eight terse lines has Phædrus told
(So frugal were the bards of old)
A tale of goats; and closed with grace,
Plan, moral, all, in that short space.”" [1913 Webster]
Syn. -- Neat; concise; compact.
OXFORD DICTIONARY
terse, adj. (terser, tersest)
1 (of language) brief, concise, to the point.
2 curt, abrupt.
1 (of language) brief, concise, to the point.
2 curt, abrupt.
Derivative
tersely adv. terseness n.
Etymology
L tersus past part. of tergere wipe, polish
THESAURUS
terse
Attic, Ciceronian, Spartan, abbreviated, abridged, abrupt, aphoristic, aposiopestic, axiomatic, bluff, blunt, brief, brusque, chaste, classic, clear, clear-cut, clipped, close, close-tongued, closemouthed, compact, compendious, compressed, concentrated, concise, condensed, contracted, crisp, curt, cut, direct, distilled, docked, dumb, easy, economical of words, elegant, elliptic, epigrammatic, finished, formulaic, formulistic, gnomic, graceful, gracile, gruff, incisive, indisposed to talk, laconic, lean, limpid, lucid, mum, mute, natural, neat, pellucid, perspicuous, petulant, pithy, plain, platitudinous, pointed, polished, precise, proverbial, pruned, pungent, pure, quiet, refined, reserved, restrained, round, rude, sententious, short, short and sweet, shortened, silent, simple, snug, sparing of words, speechless, straightforward, succinct, summary, synopsized, taciturn, tart, tasteful, taut, tight, tight-lipped, to the point, tongue-tied, trim, truncated, unaffected, ungracious, unlabored, unloquacious, untalkative, word-bound, wordlessROGET THESAURUS
terse
Conciseness
N conciseness, brevity, the soul of wit, laconism, Tacitus, ellipsis, syncope, abridgment, compression, epitome, monostich, brunch word, portmanteau word, concise, brief, short, terse, close, to the point, exact, neat, compact, compressed, condensed, pointed, laconic, curt, pithy, trenchant, summary, pregnant, compendious, succinct, elliptical, epigrammatic, quaint, crisp, sententious, concisely, briefly, summarily, in brief, in short, in a word, in a few words, for shortness sake, to come to the point, to make a long story short, to cut the matter short, to be brief, it comes to this, the long and the short of it is, brevis esse laboro obscurus fio.
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