PITHY • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Pithy

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/pˈɪθi/ Listen

adjective

Pithy adj. (compar. pithier; superl. pithiest)

Consisting wholly, or in part, of pith; abounding in pith; as, a pithy stem; a pithy fruit.

Having nervous energy; forceful; cogent. "This pithy speech prevailed, and all agreed." "In all these Goodman Fact was very short, but pithy."

Pithy gall (Zool.), a large, rough, furrowed, oblong gall, formed on blackberry canes by a small gallfly (Diastrophus nebulosus).

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Etymology of 'Pithy'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Pithy" Quotes from Famous Books

... not, therefore, be displeased if, instead of rising from his seat and placing a chair, the banker merely bows and points to one. Lawyers, on the contrary, are expected to behave like any other gentlemen; so also physicians. The patient is directed in both cases to relate his grievances in short, pithy sentences; answer all questions clearly; apologise for taking up their time by asking them in turn—in consequence, he must say, of his own ignorance; and then finish by warmly thanking them for the attention they give to his affairs. Authors and artists must affect great ...

— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various

... knowledge of the Navy or the sea. In 1893 E.J. Payne brought out a much handier edition of the Voyages of the Elizabethan Seamen to America which gives the very parts of Hakluyt we want for our present purpose, and gives them with a running accompaniment of pithy introductions and apposite footnotes. Nearly all historians are both landsmen and civilians whose sins of omission and commission are generally at their worst in naval and nautical affairs. But James ...

— Elizabethan Sea Dogs • William Wood

... careful study; they are full of wisdom and of an imaginative philosophy, expressed in pithy and telling form, which continually reminds the reader of Blake's ...

— Mysticism in English Literature • Caroline F. E. Spurgeon

... the fast naval cruiser Minneapolis before the mouth of the harbor. The number of these ships shows the importance attached to the duty. It was necessary to allow largely for the chapter of accidents; for, to apply a pithy saying of the Chief of the Naval Bureau of Equipment,—"the only way to have coal enough is to have too much,"—the only way to assemble ships enough when things grow critical, is to send more than barely enough. All those that received their orders proceeded as ...

— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan

... propose a question. As our king, we put our lives and fortunes in your hands. If, therefore, the Eagle, the Vulture, and the Kite, should make a descent upon us, what means would you take for our defense?" This pithy question opened the eyes of the Birds to the weakness of their choice ...

— Aesop's Fables - A New Revised Version From Original Sources • Aesop

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