Terseness: meaning, example and synonyms
Tersenessn. The quality of using very few words, sometimes to the point of seeming curt.
Example
Reviewers praised the terseness of the poet's later verse, observing that its compressed lines conveyed more feeling than the ornate stanzas of her youth.
- Part of speech
- noun
- Synonyms
- brevity, conciseness, curtness, succinctness
- Antonyms
- verbosity, wordiness, prolixity, long-windedness
- Memory tip
- Terse = trimmed: every extra word has been cut away.
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Check yourself: Terseness in context
The manager's emails were notable for their ______: rarely more than a line long, they offered instructions without greetings, explanations, or thanks.
Answer: terseness. One-line messages with no greetings show curt brevity: terseness. Synthesis (combining parts into a whole), attrition (gradual wearing down) and anomaly (a deviation from the norm) don't fit.
Some readers found the novelist's ______ refreshing after the sprawling sagas of her contemporaries, while others missed the lush description that her clipped sentences omitted.
Answer: terseness. Clipped sentences contrasted with sprawling sagas show terseness. Obstinacy (stubbornness), complacency (smug self-satisfaction) and attrition (gradual wearing down) don't fit.