- 1簡短生硬的、簡潔的（通常帶有不耐煩或冷淡的語氣）
A terse piece of language uses very few words. It is short, and — this is the part students miss — the shortness usually carries a feeling. Say your boss sends you "Fine." That is terse. The words are correct, nothing is wrong with them, but you can feel that something is being held back: , , or just a wish not to talk to you right now. So terse describes replies, messages, emails, notes, and the way someone answers a question. You can also call a person terse, meaning they answer that way, either at that moment or by nature. There is a second, older, kinder use that still lives in writing about writing: a terse style can mean a good style — short, clean, nothing wasted, every word earning its place. A book who calls a novel's prose terse is praising it. But that use is now the smaller one, mostly found in reviews and criticism. In everyday talk, if you say someone was terse with you, everyone will hear "they were short with me and probably ". Note the difference from brief and short: brief is neutral (a brief meeting), terse almost always has a temperature to it.
組成From Latin tersus, meaning 'wiped clean, polished, neat' — the past participle of tergeo 'to wipe, to rub clean'. So the original picture is of writing that has been wiped clean of anything extra. That explains why the older, praising sense (clean and polished prose) came first, and the annoyed sense grew out of it later: too clean can start to feel cold.
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
terseadj/tɜːs/
- 1
Of speech or style: brief, concise, to the point.
- In eight terse lines has Phædrus told / (So frugal were the Bards of old) / A Tale of Goats; and clos'd with grace / Plan, Moral, all, in that ſhort space.
- Your last series contains some of the neatest, tersest, and most unpretendingly original criticism, I have lately met with.
- 2
Of manner or speech: abruptly or brusquely short; curt.
- 'Laura!' The voice halting her was terse. Brusque. She turned. [...] 'Before I go,' he said, and his voice was terse, tighter than ever. 'I want to ensure you understand something.'
- My voice was terser than I intended, but what the hell. The night was turning out to be interesting in some ways and extremely frustrating in others.
- 3
obsoleteBurnished, polished; fine, smooth; neat, spruce.
- By Phœbus, here's a moſt neate fine ſtreete; is't not? I proteſt to thee, I am enamord of this ſtreete now, more then of halfe the ſtreetes of Rome, againe; tis ſo polite, and terſe; [...]
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。