Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Terse
Terse
,Adj.
[
Com
par.
Terser
; sup
erl.
Tersest
.] [L.
tersus
, p. p. of tergere
to rub or wipe off.] 1.
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.
2.
Refined; accomplished; – said of persons.
[R. & Obs.]
“Your polite and terse gallants.” Massinger.
3.
Elegantly concise; free of superfluous words; polished to smoothness;
as,
. terse
language; a terse
styleTerse
, luminous, and dignified eloquence. Macaulay.
A poet, too, was there, whose verse
Was tender, musical, and
Was tender, musical, and
terse
. Longfellow.
Syn. – 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
(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.”– 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.”
Terse′ly
, adv.
Terse′ness
, Noun.
Webster 1828 Edition
Terse
TERSE
,Adj.
Cleanly written; neat; elegant without pompousness; as terse language; a terse style.
Diffus'd,yet terse, poetical,though plain.