Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Brief and to the point; effectively concise: a terse one-word answer.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Wiped; rubbed; appearing as if wiped or rubbed; smooth.
- Refined; accomplished; polished: said of persons.
- Free from superfluity; neatly or elegantly compact or concise; neat; concise.
- n. See terce.
Wiktionary
- adj. obsolete Polished, burnished; smooth; fine, neat, spruce.
- adj. of speech or style Brief, concise, to the point.
- adj. Abruptly or brusquely short.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. obsolete Appearing as if rubbed or wiped off; rubbed; smooth; polished.
- adj. R. & Obs. Refined; accomplished; -- said of persons.
- adj. Elegantly concise; free of superfluous words; polished to smoothness.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. brief and to the point; effectively cut short
Etymologies
- From the year 1599, from French ters ("clean"), from Latin tersus ("cleansed; neat, spruce"), perfect passive participle of tergō ("I rub, wipe, cleanse"). (Wiktionary)
- Latin tersus, past participle of tergēre, to cleanse. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Ms. Diallo's lawyers received what one of them called a "terse" letter Friday inviting her to meet with prosecutors at 3 p.m. to discuss what will happen in court Tuesday.”
“The one that was bolded and written in terse sentence fractions, of course, is not.”
“And terse is right your elitist definition of success ignore many middle and lower class successful individuals.”
“Hence, even when I tell the truth, my speech patterns are pretty set in this way and I speak in short, terse responses and evasive answers.”
Catch Phrases That May Tip You Off To A Lie | Lifehacker Australia
“Many people can fully promote their articles in short, terse, one-sentence descriptions.”
OpEdNews - Diary: Help OEN Re-Design Our Front Page and Beyond
“Told in terse sentences that can read like stanzas of poetry ... this brief but powerful book is unforgettable.”
Timothy: Summary and book reviews of Timothy by Verlyn Klinkenborg.
“Being terse is not a sign of being a better communicator, but it is often a sign of not having any original thoughts …”
“His tidings were given slowly in short, terse sentences.”
“Back home in Glassboro a week later, Bob Thomas called the airport manager and left her what he calls a terse message.”
“The study notification arrived Friday in what some family members call a terse form letter from the city telling them their loved one's voice had been identified in the 911 system.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘terse’.
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Test Prep or Just for fun
Building a list for standardized test prep or just for learning some new words! Please add any words that you feel are important for the SAT/GRE/GMAT etc...
throng, morass, parley, facile, kismet, strife, jetsam, carrion, annex, harbinger, vestige, surreptitious and 575 more...
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GRE 2014
abase, abate, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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Previous GRE
churlish, martinet, polyglot, aplomb, dissembler, hack, dissimilitude, whit, histrionics, prevarication, pithy, aphorism and 16 more...
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man gre
abase, abeyance, abreast, abscission, abscond, abyss, accede, accretion, acerbic, acidulous, acumen, adulterate and 481 more...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6689 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1824 more...
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SAT Words
But only the ones that I don't already know.
abase, abash, abominate, abstruse, acclivity, accolade, accost, adroit, adulate, adulterate, adumbrate, affray and 241 more...
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What Do You Mean ?
U Gotta Know These.......
falter, ruddy, flounder, pallid, fumble, founder, labile, titular, tacit, pragmatic, fatalism, jaded and 112 more...
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GRE
vacillate, prosaic, auspicious, insipid, cerbic, acerbic, pertinacious, rapacious, specious, belied, assiduous, intractable and 8 more...
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my GRE words
pedant, wizened, histrionic, logorrhea, frenetic, approbation, quibble, knell, acclivity, droog, prevarication, aplomb and 182 more...
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Week 1, Day 1
ignominy, marquee, deter, chariot, stern, perfidy, treacherous, insolent, presumptuous, banish, dubious, livid and 133 more...
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GRE
anomaly, assuage, enigma, equivocal, erudite, fervid, placate, lucid, opaque, precipitate, prodigal, zeal and 113 more...
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SAT Vocab
Redundant.
problematic, proclivity, prodigal, prodigious, prodigy, profane, profligate, profound, profusion, proliferation, prolific, prologue and 455 more...
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Barron's 1100 words you need to know ...
acute, aversion, cogent, evince, gist, hostile, inevitable, intrinsic, jettison, lucrative, paramount, prevalent and 8 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for terse.
elfflame See laconic. Dec 18, 2007