terse
Americanadjective
-
terser,
comparative
-
tersest
superlative
-
neatly or effectively concise; brief and pithy, as language.
- Synonyms:
- compendious, epigrammatic, brief, compact, succinct
adjective
-
neatly brief and concise
-
curt; abrupt
Synonym Usage
See concise.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of terse
First recorded in 1595–1605; from Latin tersus, past participle of tergēre “to rub off, wipe off, clean, polish”
Explanation
Terse means brief, or using very few words. If your teacher tells you to make your writing in your essay style terse and to the point, he's saying use as few words as you can and be simple and clear. A terse reply or command may seem rude or unfriendly—but the word terse itself doesn't mean unfriendly or rude. Synonyms are succinct or concise, though these words have a more positive tone. The adjective terse is from Latin tersus "clean, neat," from tergere "to rub off, wipe, polish." Polished language is neatly concise.
Vocabulary lists containing terse
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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.
See Examples For:
In response to an inquiry about whether there was enough food onboard, one ship responded in terse Farsi: “Do not worry about our food.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 1, 2026
The Supreme Court’s terse order agreed on both points.
From Slate ● Sep. 15, 2026
On Dec. 23, 1996, the Los Angeles Times published a terse and callous article about the young man’s slaying.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2026
The minutes were shorter but not as terse as some economists feared, though some of the description of the discussions seemed truncated.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 8, 2026
A week later Westerberg received a terse card with a Montana postmark: April 18.
From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer
Not exactly a warm embrace of the new Warsh Fed: terser “just the facts” statements, shorter news conferences, no forward guidance, and a no-nonsense message that there’s a new sheriff in town.
From Barron's ● Jun. 18, 2026
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, whom I asked separately, had a terser response: “I’m gonna leave that to the medics.”
From Slate ● May 16, 2023
Some of his friends noticed a change in his writing style — a change that one scholar later described as a departure from “sustained argument and prolonged reflection” to a terser “telegram style.”
From Washington Post ● Dec. 29, 2022
Sanders is not only more infrequent but also terser.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 1, 2019
Still terser, but hardly less expressive, is Emerson's characterization of Lincoln as one who had been "permitted to do more for America than any other American man."
From The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln A Narrative And Descriptive Biography With Pen-Pictures And Personal Recollections By Those Who Knew Him by Francis F. (Francis Fisher) Browne
The tersest analysis of Christie’s entry in the race has come from Christie’s target, Trump.
From Slate ● Jun. 7, 2023
A man crying also furnishes the Bible with its shortest, tersest line: “Jesus wept.”
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 4, 2018
During a post-debate gaggle, the tersest Gillespie got was when a reporter tried to get clarity on whether he plans to invite Trump to the state.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 21, 2017
Mr. Tillerson is in many ways the personality opposite of Mr. Kerry: When asked a hard question he will offer the tersest answer possible, rather than attack with words.
From New York Times ● Apr. 12, 2017
The deep voice filled in the pause also in tersest English.
From Desert Love by Joan Conquest
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.
