TERSE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Terse

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adjective

Terse adj. (compar. terser; superl. tersest)

1.

Appearing as if rubbed or wiped off; rubbed; smooth; polished. (Obs.) "Many stones,... although terse and smooth, have not this power attractive."

2.

Refined; accomplished; said of persons. (R. & Obs.) "Your polite and terse gallants."

3.

Elegantly concise; free of superfluous words; polished to smoothness; as, terse language; a terse style. "Terse, luminous, and dignified eloquence." "A poet, too, was there, whose verse Was tender, musical, and terse."

Synonyms: 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 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."" It differs from concise in not implying, perhaps, quite as much condensation, but chiefly in the additional idea of "grace or elegance."

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Etymology of 'Terse'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Terse" Quotes from Famous Books

... women in depreciatory fashion, and calls them inconstant, deceitful, and stupefying,—to the very modern maxim which brings together the extreme elevation and extreme degradation of woman: "Give the woman wings and she is either an angel or a beast.'' Terse as this expression is, it ought to imply the proper point of view—women are either superior or inferior to us, and may be both at the same time. There are women who are superior and there are women who are inferior, and further, a single woman may be superior ...

— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... pedestal, a third tablet bears the inscription which was written at the instance of Very Rev. Dr. Charles B. Rex, president of the Brighton Theological Seminary. Mgr. Schroeder, the author, interprets the meaning of the whole, in terse rhythmical Latin sentences, after the ...

— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... said Sylvia curtly. When her feelings were touched she had a way of growing curt and terse, ...

— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth

... the two books, however, the "Kojiki" is much more valuable as a true record, because, though rude in style and exceedingly naive in expression, and by no means free from Chinese thoughts and phrases, it is marked by a genuinely Japanese cast of thought and method of composition. Instead of the terse, carefully measured, balanced, and antithetical sentences of correct Chinese, those of the "Kojiki" are long and involved, and without much logical connection. The "Kojiki" contains the real notions, feelings, and beliefs of Japanese who lived ...

— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... and meticulously honest—and Shirley's pride was monumental. Hers was the pride of lineage, of womanhood, of an assured station in life, combined with that other pride which is rather difficult of definition without verbosity and is perhaps better expressed in the terse and illuminating phrase "a dead-game sport." Unlike her precious relative, unlike the majority of her sex, Shirley had a wonderfully balanced sense of the eternal fitness of things; her code of honour resembled ...

— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

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