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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Precisely meaningful; forceful and brief: a pithy comment.
  2. adj. Consisting of or resembling pith.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Of the nature of or full of pith; containing or abounding with pith: as, a pithy stem; a pithy substance.
  2. Full of pith or force; forcible; containing much in a concentrated or dense form; of style, sententious: as, a pithy saying or expression.
  3. Given to the use of pithy or forcible expressions.
  4. Synonyms and Terse, laconic, concise, pointed, sententious.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. Precisely meaningful; forceful and brief.
  2. adj. Concise and full of meaning.
  3. adj. Tersely cogent.
  4. adj. Of, like, or abounding in pith.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Consisting wholly, or in part, of pith; abounding in pith
  2. adj. Having nervous energy; forceful; cogent.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. concise and full of meaning

Examples

  • “After all, men prefer to "blink," a term I picked up from Dell Global Marketing VP Andy Lark, who himself loves to blog in short, pithy sentences.”

    Who Gives A Tweet? Mommybloggers Do. - Jory Des Jardins - MediaBizBloggers

  • “But I have to remember that, as addicting as it is to deal in pithy statements, editors seem to like things that are longer, and longer works require more effort.”

    Stretch

  • “His blazing contempt for people is couched in pithy, derivative “wit” and helpful pointers on how they could and should be more like him.”

    There Is A God « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG

  • “This pithy is word is gleaned from World Wide Words.”

    Mishmash « So Many Books

  • “Now you can follow my adventures on and off the beach in short, pithy, bursts.”

    Archive 2008-05-01

  • “Comments seelight, i am so glad that you're taxonomizing your language peeves! and i agree with much of what you say, even if it means that i've now re-written this little comment some eight times or howevermany already. but i've got to respond to your post on pithy, which was not so, um, pithy. pithy is a great word, because it specifically means "a maximum of effect from a minimum of words.”

    Strunk and Light IV: Using it just to use it

  • “He excels in short, pithy work at the hard-science end of the spectrum.”

    :Acquired Taste

  • “He talked quite a bit about the perceived value of a bullet point and the meaningfulness, or lack of meaning contained in short pithy statements, illustrating his points with sample Power Point slides from Bible sites and marriage counseling sites.”

    Black Market Kidneys » Do You Heart Powerpoint

  • “The City is always coining pithy little epigrams like this.”

    The Holiday Round

  • “City is always coining pithy little epigrams like this.”

    Happy Days

Show 10 more examples...

Comments

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  • plethora Ha! Mar 22, 2009

  • sionnach Oh that bilby. Alwayth tho full of pith and vinegar! Mar 22, 2009

  • plethora I don't think I've ever heard it used like that, b. Mar 22, 2009

  • bilby I use pithy in exactly the opposite sense of WordNet's definition. Pithy is practically devoid of meaning, in the way the pith of a fruit is devoid of flavour and usually not particularly edible. Mar 22, 2009

  • oroboros See lisp for more. May 18, 2007

  • seanahan This is what pissy sounds like with a lisp. Mar 3, 2007

‘pithy’ has been looked up 4221 times, loved by 16 people, added to 152 lists, commented on 6 times, and has a Scrabble score of 13.