terse
adjective/tɜːs/
/tɜːrs/
- using few words and often not seeming polite or friendly
- a terse style
- The president issued a terse statement denying the charges.
- Although he was terse, he didn’t rage at me.
Oxford Collocations DictionaryTerse is used with these nouns:- nod
- reply
Word Originearly 17th cent.: from Latin tersus ‘wiped, polished’, from the verb tergere. The original sense was ‘polished, trim, spruce’, (relating to language) ‘polished, polite’, hence ‘concise and to the point’ (late 18th cent.).Want to learn more?
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terse