Crossword clues for terse
terse
- Short and to the point
- Brief in speech
- Using few words
- Short and not so sweet
- Certainly not verbose
- Right to the point
- Not long-winded
- Far from prolix
- Short and snappy
- Not very wordy
- Not inclined to go on
- Not chatty
- Like some reprimands
- Hardly talkative
- Hardly loquacious
- Hardly chatty
- Far from talkative
- By no means long-winded
- Brief in one's words
- Not roundabout
- Far from flowery
- Effectively concise
- Without wasting words
- Without wasted words
- Sparing of words
- Short and to-the-point
- Not very chatty
- Not at all wordy
- Neatly concise
- Lacking in detail
- Far from long-winded
- Briefly worded, like a tweet
- Briefly stated
- Brief, like a tweet
- As in a nutshell
- Without elaboration
- Wasting few words
- Verbally sparing
- Succinct in speech
- Short, but probably not sweet
- Short and direct
- Saying little on purpose
- Quick and to the point
- Most definitely dissimilar to this clue
- Monosyllabic, perhaps
- Low on word count
- In a nutshell
- Hardly verbose
- Concisely worded
- Worded concisely
- Without extra verbiage
- Without any unnecessary proliferation of verbiage
- Unlike filibusters
- U-turn from verbose
- Term often applied to Hemingway
- Sparingly worded
- Snippy, in a way
- Short, concise and to the point (unlike this clue)
- Short on words
- Short and sweet
- Short and sweet, as speeches go
- Short and probably not sweet
- Short and pithy
- Opposite of verbose
- Not saying very much
- Not rambling
- Not overly vocal
- Not longwinded
- Not likely to run on
- Not garrulous
- Not at all talkative
- Not at all overly wordy, unlike this clue
- Linguistically sparing
- Like tweets
- Like one-word responses
- Like one-word replies
- Like Coolidge, famously
- Like Calvin Coolidge
- Like aphorisms
- Like a one-word email
- Hardly gabby
- Free of superfluity
- Far from diffuse
- Efficiently worded
- Efficiently expressed, maybe
- Economical in words
- Concise in wording
- Concise in one's speech
- Brief, like many tweets
- Adjective for Calvin Coolidge's comments
- Succinctly worded
- Elliptical, in a way
- Curt — abrupt
- Blunt
- Laconic
- To the point
- Short-winded
- Clipped, in a way
- Brief and to the point
- Pithy
- Brusquely short
- Antisesquipedalian
- Concise in speech
- Short and maybe sweet
- Not windy?
- In telegraphese, e.g
- Pointed
- Not going on
- Like headlines
- Breviloquent
- Like Coolidge's utterances
- Hardly prolix
- Not wordy
- Not at all windy
- Hardly wordy
- Abrupt
- Not wandering
- In headlinese, say
- Short and maybe not sweet
- Hardly sesquipedalian
- Not saying much
- Far from windy
- Unpadded
- Short and often not sweet
- Not at all garrulous
- Not drawn out
- Not flowery
- Like the review "Hated it," e.g.
- Hardly windy
- Like Hemingway's prose
- Without any embroidery
- Short and sweet?
- Unwordy
- Like telegrams, typically
- 24-hour place to hit the links?
- Adhering to Strunk and White's advice "Omit needless words"
- Crisp and brief
- Hardly rambling
- Like tweets, by necessity
- Like newspaper headlines, typically
- Like one-word answers
- Brief and pithy
- Hardly long-winded
- Succinctly put
- Like the answer "No."
- Facetious response to "Describe yourself in three adjectives"
- Like Calvin Coolidge, famously
- Hardly wandering
- Epigrammatic
- Pauciloquent
- Compendious
- Sententious
- Hardly garrulous
- Succintly worded
- Opposite of prolix
- Very short
- Revision of 20 Across
- Not verbose
- Far from verbose
- Wasting no words
- Summary
- Short and sharp
- Polished
- Cryptic
- Succinct poem needs new beginning
- Some after sex that's quick
- Short, abrupt
- Short stretch of shorter sentence
- Short piece of poetry given new introduction
- Short letter sent, partially read?
- Short contribution to poster session
- Brusque, in daughter's estimation
- Discover barristers examining brief
- Thorpe's boundaries risked losing all, even being abrupt
- Ultimately elegant Celtic language, neat and concise
- Of few words
- Like this clue
- Far from wordy
- Not very vocal
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Terse \Terse\, a. [Compar. Terser; superl. Tersest.] [L. tersus, p. p. of tergere to rub or wipe off.]
-
Appearing as if rubbed or wiped off; rubbed; smooth; polished. [Obs.]
Many stones, . . . although terse and smooth, have not this power attractive.
--Sir T. Browne. Refined; accomplished; -- said of persons. [R. & Obs.] ``Your polite and terse gallants.''
--Massinger.-
Elegantly concise; free of superfluous words; polished to smoothness; as, terse language; a terse style.
Terse, luminous, and dignified eloquence.
--Macaulay.A poet, too, was there, whose verse Was tender, musical, and terse.
--Longfellow.Syn: Neat; concise; compact.
Usage: 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 Ph[ae]drus told (So frugal were the bards of old) A tale of goats; and closed with grace, Plan, moral, all, in that short space.'' [1913 Webster] It differs from concise in not implying, perhaps, quite as much condensation, but chiefly in the additional idea of ``grace or elegance.'' [1913 Webster] -- Terse"ly, adv. -- Terse"ness, n.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1590s (implied in tersely), "clean-cut, burnished, neat," from French ters "clean," and directly from Latin tersus "wiped off, clean, neat," from past participle of tergere "to rub, polish, wipe." Sense of "concise or pithy in style or language" is from 1777, which led to a general sense of "neatly concise." The pejorative meaning "brusque" is a fairly recent development. Related: Terseness.
Wiktionary
a. 1 (context obsolete English) polish, burnished; smooth; fine, neat, spruce. 2 (context of speech or style English) brief, concise, to the point.
WordNet
Usage examples of "terse".
She could have written her terse note on paper, but wood was more durable.
His terse attempts at conversation the last few days left her pouting and confused by how to change things between them.
The scribe, who was lanky as a scarecrow, pallid from working indoors, and habitually terse, wanted to melt into a shell like a snail and politely close the door behind him.
He eventually heeds a terse suggestion and starts going out and telling his grisly personal story publicly from the podium with other members of White Flag, the Group he gave in and finally officially joined.
Commercial airliners began for a while to trail those terse translucent ad-banners usually reserved for like Piper Cubs over football games and July beaches.
The area outside the oval, at the extreme edges of the map, was filled with a chaos of symbolic little lines marked here and there with the terse comment: UNINHABITABLE.
The greeting from behind the small, efficient desk was terse and to the point, accompanied by a knitted frown of eyebrows.
That was followed by terse orders directing him to stay on the ship and hold it ready for liftoff.
After her terse acknowledgment, Harry spoke three words in a different language, and a moment later the Witch confirmed that the coded signal had been received.
I shrugged in response to the terse questions coming from all four sides of me.
During the morning announcements, Miss Don assigned a few terse words to the tragic loss of an employee, warned the students not to speak with reporters, and went right on to the homecoming festivities-the very mention of which gave me goose bumps.
On a terse command from their carrier, they went to afterburner and rocketed southwest toward the Backfires.
Pope, the majestic blank verse of Thomson, the terse octosyllabics of Swift, the sonorous quatrains of Gray, and the lively anapests of Sheridan and Moore.
Obliged to dine in hall that evening to fulfil his quota, Jack sat between a terse mathematician and a zoologist called Lascelles who was full of a recent field trip to the Cameroons to study butterflies.
He quickly handed off his hat and voluminous greatcoat to a very terse Edgewater, but was intercepted by his petite cousin before he reached the stairs.