incisive
adjective
Did you know?
An incisive person doesn’t hem and haw—they get straight to the point. The original meaning of incisive, from around 1600, was "having a cutting edge or piercing point"; the modern meaning of "impressively direct and decisive" has been part of English since the mid-1800s. Incisive is a close relative of incisor, which refers to a front tooth typically adapted for cutting, so it's no surprise that incisive has a specific meaning in dentistry, describing that which is of, relating to, or situated near the incisors. Both incisive and incisor come from the Latin verb caedere, meaning "to cut." English is rich in cuttings from the fruitful stem of caedere: some examples to sink your teeth into are scissors, chisel, incise ("to cut into or engrave"), excise ("to remove by cutting"), incision ("cut" or "gash"), precise ("minutely exact"), and concise ("brief").
Examples of incisive in a Sentence
Thom Harris, New York Times, 23 Oct. 2025
The film’s final reveal is one last turning of the knife in Lapid’s incisive, combustible critique of a country ensnared in the delirium of war.
—Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire, 21 Oct. 2025
Rather, the album sounds and feels like it was made by thoughtful practitioners of a genre, not tourists attempting to tap into nostalgia, using disco as an incisive tool of commentary on the now.
—Hanif Abdurraqib, New Yorker, 18 Oct. 2025
There are a couple incisive books that take on the dismal state of our digital age, by Cory Doctorow and Paul Leonardi.
—Julia Hass, Literary Hub, 7 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for incisive
Cite this Entry
“Incisive.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/incisive. Accessed 24 Oct. 2025.
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incisive
adjective
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incisive
adjective
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