terser; tersest
1
: using few words : devoid of superfluity
a terse summary
also : short, brusque
dismissed me with a terse "no"
2
: smoothly elegant : polished
tersely adverb
terseness noun
Choose the Right Synonym for terse

concise, terse, succinct, laconic, summary, pithy, compendious mean very brief in statement or expression.

concise suggests the removal of all that is superfluous or elaborative.

a concise description

terse implies pointed conciseness.

a terse reply

succinct implies the greatest possible compression.

a succinct letter of resignation

laconic implies brevity to the point of seeming rude, indifferent, or mysterious.

an aloof and laconic stranger

summary suggests the statement of main points with no elaboration or explanation.

a summary listing of the year's main events

pithy adds to succinct or terse the implication of richness of meaning or substance.

a comedy sharpened by pithy one-liners

compendious applies to what is at once full in scope and brief and concise in treatment.

a compendious dictionary

Examples of terse in a Sentence

Everything about him is tidy, from his terse wit to the flecks of gray hair that fall in precise iterations around the edges of his scalp. Devin Gordon, Newsweek, 29 July 2002
… Johnston stays bolted to the wheelhouse floor, wrestling the helm and jotting down notes in the ship log. His entries are terse, bullet descriptions of the unending chaos outside. Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm, 1997
This vicious cycle was captured succinctly in Gandhi's terse warning that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. David McCabe, Commonweal, 11 Apr. 1997
She accepts the caller's terse expression of sympathy and duly expresses in return her appreciation for that unenviable bit of message-bearing. John Barth, Harper's, January 1994
She gave me a few terse instructions and promptly left the room. could tell from his terse replies to my questions that he was in no mood to talk
Recent Examples on the Web This discourse has been propelled into the mainstream by prominent figures such as Bill Ackman, Elon Musk, and Mark Cuban, whose exchanges on X often veer into terse debates on the topic. Kylie Robison, Fortune, 15 Mar. 2024 The Wolf of Wall Street is also the fastest three-hour movie ever made — editor Thelma Schoonmaker definitively outdoes herself here, making a story that spans a decade feel breezy but never rushed thanks to terse montages. Wesley Stenzel, EW.com, 9 Mar. 2024 See all Example Sentences for terse 

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'terse.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Latin tersus clean, neat, from past participle of tergēre to wipe off

First Known Use

1601, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Time Traveler
The first known use of terse was in 1601

Dictionary Entries Near terse

Cite this Entry

“Terse.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/terse. Accessed 29 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

terse

adjective
terser; tersest
: being brief and to the point : concise
a terse summary
also : curt, brusque
dismissed me with a terse "no"
tersely adverb
terseness noun

More from Merriam-Webster on terse

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