How to Use terse in a Sentence

terse

adjective
  • She gave me a few terse instructions and promptly left the room.
  • His wife and children found a terse note that said only not to look for him.
    Amy Wang | For The Oregonian/oregonlive, oregonlive, 17 July 2023
  • That was followed by a fairly terse note on the website.
    oregonlive, 31 Mar. 2020
  • His exchanges with Rob are terse to the point of being hostile.
    Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 15 July 2021
  • The conversations have been described as brief and terse.
    Cynthia Littleton, Variety, 21 July 2023
  • His wayward path was presented in terse blasts of punk-blues.
    Greg Kot, chicagotribune.com, 2 June 2017
  • Their voice is monotone, or their online chatting is dry and terse.
    Lance Eliot, Forbes, 21 Apr. 2023
  • Another got a terse letter for not spraying the mold off the side of his house frequently enough.
    Cleve R. Wootson Jr., Washington Post, 7 Aug. 2017
  • The question brought a terse response from the German government.
    Adam Shaw, Fox News, 30 Sep. 2023
  • The counts provided terse descriptions of what Nolan was alleged to have done.
    Scott Wartman, Cincinnati.com, 9 Feb. 2018
  • His departure was announced in a terse statement by the White House.
    Cathleen Decker, latimes.com, 29 Sep. 2017
  • Sounding terse in a social media comment is of less concern.
    Miss Manners | Judith Martin, Anchorage Daily News, 27 Aug. 2023
  • On the trail, DeSantis can be brief with voters and terse with reporters.
    Hannah Knowles, Josh Dawsey, Michael Scherer and Marianne Levine, The Washington Post, Anchorage Daily News, 16 July 2023
  • 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
  • As a result, communication with his team was terse and brief.
    Ashton Shanks, Forbes, 25 May 2021
  • Her text messages from London are infrequent and terse.
    Rachel Syme, The New Yorker, 19 June 2023
  • The information was terse, only that Giffords had been shot.
    Lisa Kennedy, Variety, 15 Mar. 2022
  • There is a lot of history packed into these terse sentences, and just as much controversy.
    William A. Galston, WSJ, 12 June 2018
  • Sometimes the entry would be terse and factual, offering no more than a place of origin and an estimate of the number of dead.
    Jonathan Freedland, Time, 29 Dec. 2022
  • Their exchange is terse and extremely one-sided in favor of the self-righteous Bosch.
    Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 20 Oct. 2023
  • After a month without a response, Cerutti wrote back with a terse reminder, adding Harper to the email.
    Lisa Song, ProPublica, 20 Sep. 2019
  • But the footage showed little actual fighting, and reports of clashes were limited to terse and vague statements.
    Ronen Bergman, New York Times, 30 Oct. 2023
  • Answers are terse, short, and hugely telling stories unto themselves.
    Brian Boone, Vulture, 7 Apr. 2021
  • His response to Hilbert was terse and clearly designed to assert priority.
    Walter Isaacson, Scientific American, 1 Sep. 2015
  • His answers to most questions were mostly short and terse, choosing to focus solely on his motivation to win the game and address any perceived slight with his play.
    Jon Hale, The Courier-Journal, 30 Dec. 2019
  • The other likely reason for his terse demeanor was his performance on Saturday.
    Detroit Free Press, 3 Sep. 2022
  • But his terse answers and broad reluctance to comment at all gave Democrats and Republicans little more.
    Ronald J. Hansen, azcentral, 24 July 2019
  • The Army has been closed mouthed about the incident, issuing a terse two-sentence reply to questions Friday.
    Tom Roeder, The Denver Post, 16 June 2017
  • In the remarkably terse press release accompanying the announcement, there is no further timeline and there are no market specifics.
    Bengt Halvorson, Car and Driver, 3 Oct. 2017
  • His terse remarks take on an oracular quality that can preclude disagreement.
    Jerry Adler, Newsweek, 14 Mar. 2018

Some of 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.

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