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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

terse.

Of speech or style: brief, concise, to the point.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/tɜːs/Received-Pronunciation/təːs/British, Southern, Standard/tɛɾs/Scotland/tøːs/Wales
  1. Of speech or style: brief, concise, to the point.

    broadly
  2. Of manner or speech: abruptly or brusquely short; curt.

    broadly
  3. Burnished, polished; fine, smooth; neat, spruce.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Latin tersus (“clean, cleansed, rubbed or wiped off; neat, spruce; terse”), perfect passive participle of Latin tergeō, tergō (“to clean, cleanse, rub, wipe, wipe off”).

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terse studioterse workshello, terse

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.