Adjacent Words

Terse definitions

	Tweet

Webster's 1828 Dictionary

TERSE, a. ters. [L. tersus, from tergo, to wipe.]
Cleanly written; neat; elegant without pompousness; as terse language; a terse style.
Diffus'd,yet terse, poetical,though plain.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: 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" [syn: crisp, curt, laconic, terse]

Merriam Webster's

adjective (terser; tersest) Etymology: Latin tersus clean, neat, from past participle of terg?re to wipe off Date: 1601 1. smoothly elegant ; polished 2. devoid of superfluity <a terse summary>; also short, brusque <dismissed me with a terse “no”> Synonyms: see concise • tersely adverb • terseness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. (terser, tersest) 1 (of language) brief, concise, to the point. 2 curt, abrupt. Derivatives: tersely adv. terseness n. Etymology: L tersus past part. of tergere wipe, polish

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Terse Terse, a. [Compar. Terser; superl. Tersest.] [L. tersus, p. p. of tergere to rub or wipe off.] 1. Appearing as if rubbed or wiped off; rubbed; smooth; polished. [Obs.] Many stones, . . . although terse and smooth, have not this power attractive. --Sir T. Browne. 2. Refined; accomplished; -- said of persons. [R. & Obs.] ``Your polite and terse gallants.'' --Massinger. 3. Elegantly concise; free of superfluous words; polished to smoothness; as, terse language; a terse style. Terse, luminous, and dignified eloquence. --Macaulay. A poet, too, was there, whose verse Was tender, musical, and terse. --Longfellow. Syn: Neat; concise; compact. Usage: Terse, Concise. Terse was defined by Johnson ``cleanly written'', i. e., free from blemishes, neat or smooth. Its present sense is ``free from excrescences,'' and hence, compact, with smoothness, grace, or elegance, as in the following lones of Whitehead: ``In eight terse lines has Ph[ae]drus told (So frugal were the bards of old) A tale of goats; and closed with grace, Plan, moral, all, in that short space.'' It differs from concise in not implying, perhaps, quite as much condensation, but chiefly in the additional idea of ``grace or elegance.'' -- Terse"ly, adv. -- Terse"ness, n.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(terser, tersest) A terse statement or comment is brief and unfriendly. He issued a terse statement, saying he is discussing his future with colleagues before announcing his decision on Monday... = curt ADJ • tersely 'It's too late,' he said tersely. ADV: ADV with v

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. Concise (with elegance), brief, compact, neat, pithy, sententious, succinct, free from superfluity, polished, smooth.

Moby Thesaurus

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, wordless