Terse

Many stones, . . . although terse and smooth, have not this power attractive. Sir T. Browne.

Terse, luminous, and dignified eloquence. Macaulay.

A poet, too, was there, whose verse
Was tender, musical, and terse. Longfellow.

Syn. -- 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 Phædrus 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."

-- Terse"ly, adv. -- Terse"ness, n.