terse
Americanadjective
-
neatly or effectively concise; brief and pithy, as language.
- Synonyms:
- compendious, epigrammatic, brief, compact, succinct
adjective
-
neatly brief and concise
-
curt; abrupt
Related Words
See concise.
Other Word Forms
- tersely adverb
- terseness noun
- unterse adjective
- unterseness noun
Etymology
Origin of terse
First recorded in 1595–1605; from Latin tersus, past participle of tergēre “to rub off, wipe off, clean, polish”
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The legal case is only getting going, she says, yet an “impatient” Court has produced “a terse, tonally dismissive ruling designed to conclusively resolve the dispute.”
Epstein mostly fires back terse, business-like, poorly punctuated replies - if any.
From BBC
More forms and records gathered sooner means fewer terse emails from your grouchy accountant — and less time waiting for your refund.
From MarketWatch
In terse, precise narration that provides most of our chances to hear her voice, Melania says that this will be a movie about “family, business, philanthropy and becoming first lady of the United States, again.”
From Los Angeles Times
His manner showed how personal this was to him, delivering terse and sometimes tense answers, about a series of stories that he said had "commercialised" his private life and those close to him.
From BBC
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
