TERSE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Terse

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/tərs/ Listen

adjective

Terse adj. (compar. terser; superl. tersest)

1.

Appearing as if rubbed or wiped off; rubbed; smooth; polished. (Obs.) "Many stones,... although terse and smooth, have not this power attractive."

2.

Refined; accomplished; said of persons. (R. & Obs.) "Your polite and terse gallants."

3.

Elegantly concise; free of superfluous words; polished to smoothness; as, terse language; a terse style. "Terse, luminous, and dignified eloquence." "A poet, too, was there, whose verse Was tender, musical, and terse."

Synonyms: Neat; concise; compact. 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 Phaedrus 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."

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Etymology of 'Terse'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Terse" Quotes from Famous Books

... the fine, clear handwriting was obviously feminine. He didn't have to rub the paper between his thumb and forefinger to mark its rich, heavy quality and its beauty,—the stationery of an aristocrat. The message was singularly terse: ...

— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall

... consistently insulted each other on all possible occasions. Now, however, there was a certain purposeful ring in Benton's voice which told the other this was quite different from the time-honored affectation of slander. Consequently his demand for further enlightenment came with terse directness. ...

— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... and frighten him into a confession," was the terse reply. "I want your authority to threaten him with arrest. In fact, I should prefer that you or Superintendent Galloway undertook to do that. It would ...

— The Shrieking Pit • Arthur J. Rees

... her. She would not deceive herself with the thought that it was for her father's sake Dave had galloped to town, found a doctor, secured a fresh team and driven back along the little-used foothill trails. She recalled the doctor's terse description of that journey. No doubt Dave would have done it all for her father, had her father been there alone, but as things were she had a deep conviction that he had done it for her. And it was with a greater effort than seemed reasonable that she laid her ...

— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead

... splendid, noble, and magnificent vein of eloquence." And in a letter to Cornelius Nepos, he writes of him in the following terms: "What! Of all the orators, who, during the whole course of their lives, have done nothing else, which can you prefer to him? Which of them is more pointed or terse in his periods, or employs more polished and elegant language?" In his youth, he seems to have chosen Strabo Caesar for his model; from whose oration in behalf of the Sardinians he has transcribed some passages literally into his Divination. In his ...

— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

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