terse

terse

adjective \ˈtərs\

ters·erters·est

Definition of TERSE

1

: smoothly elegant : polished

2

: using few words : devoid of superfluity <a terse summary>; also : short, brusque <dismissed me with a terse “no”>

— terse·ly adverb

— terse·ness noun

Examples of TERSE

1. She gave me a few terse instructions and promptly left the room.
2. <could tell from his terse replies to my questions that he was in no mood to talk>
3. Everything about him is tidy, from his terse wit to the flecks of gray hair that fall in precise iterations around the edges of his scalp. —Devin Gordon, Newsweek, 29 July 2002
4. … Johnston stays bolted to the wheelhouse floor, wrestling the helm and jotting down notes in the ship log. His entries are terse, bullet descriptions of the unending chaos outside. —Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm, 1997
5. This vicious cycle was captured succinctly in Gandhi's terse warning that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. —David McCabe, Commonweal, 11 Apr. 1997
6. She accepts the caller's terse expression of sympathy and duly expresses in return her appreciation for that unenviable bit of message-bearing. —John Barth, Harper's, January 1994

Origin of TERSE

Latin tersus clean, neat, from past participle of tergēre to wipe off

First Known Use: 1601

Related to TERSE

Synonyms

aphoristic, apothegmatic, brief, capsule, compact, compendious, crisp, curt, elliptical (or elliptic), epigrammatic, laconic, monosyllabic, pithy, sententious, succinct, summary, telegraphic, concise, thumbnail

Antonyms

circuitous, circumlocutory, diffuse, long-winded, prolix, rambling, verbose, windy, wordy

Related Words

abrupt, blunt, brusque (also brusk), short, snippety, snippy; abbreviated, abridged, condensed, curtailed, shortened; meaty, substantial; meaningful, significant; well-turned

Near Antonyms

pleonastic, redundant, repetitious, tautological, tautologous; enlarged, expanded, supplemented; embellished, embroidered, exaggerated, inflated

See Synonym Discussion at concise

Rhymes with TERSE

birse, burse, curse, Erse, hearse, nurse, perse, purse, terce, verse, worse