Tērse, a.

(14), a. [compar. TERSER; superl. TERSEST.] [Lat. tersus, p. p. of tergere, to rub or wipe off; It. & Sp. terso, O. Fr. ters.]

1Sense 1. Appearing as if rubbed or wiped off; clear. [Obs. and rare.] “Many stones, ... although terse and smooth, have not this power attractive.” Browne.

2Sense 2. Cleanly written; polished; neat. [Obs.] “Diffused, yet terse, poetical, though plain.” Harte.

3Sense 3. Refined; accomplished; — said of persons. [Obs. and rare.] “Your polite and terse gallants.” Massinger.

4Sense 4. Elegantly concise; compact with smoothness, grace, or elegance; as, terse language; a terse style.

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

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 lines of Whitehead:—

“In eight terse lines has Phædrus told (So frugal were the bards of old) A tale of goats; and closed with grace, Plain, 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.”