How to Use terse in a Sentence

terse

adjective
  • She gave me a few terse instructions and promptly left the room.
  • His wife and children found a terse note that said only not to look for him.
    Amy Wang | For The Oregonian/oregonlive, oregonlive, 17 July 2023
  • That was followed by a fairly terse note on the website.
    oregonlive, 31 Mar. 2020
  • His exchanges with Rob are terse to the point of being hostile.
    Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 15 July 2021
  • The eclecticism of the bill spoke to his wandering ear, and ranged from the terse hardcore of Show Me the Body to the wise-ass raps of Wiki.
    Hua Hsu, The New Yorker, 21 May 2018
  • His departure was announced in a terse statement by the White House.
    Cathleen Decker, latimes.com, 29 Sep. 2017
  • When asked Monday night about what happened with the video, Toney was at times terse with reporters.
    Jesse Newell, Kansas City Star, 6 Feb. 2024
  • On the trail, DeSantis can be brief with voters and terse with reporters.
    Hannah Knowles, Josh Dawsey, Michael Scherer and Marianne Levine, The Washington Post, Anchorage Daily News, 16 July 2023
  • His wayward path was presented in terse blasts of punk-blues.
    Greg Kot, chicagotribune.com, 2 June 2017
  • Their voice is monotone, or their online chatting is dry and terse.
    Lance Eliot, Forbes, 21 Apr. 2023
  • The question brought a terse response from the German government.
    Adam Shaw, Fox News, 30 Sep. 2023
  • The conversations have been described as brief and terse.
    Cynthia Littleton, Variety, 21 July 2023
  • The counts provided terse descriptions of what Nolan was alleged to have done.
    Scott Wartman, Cincinnati.com, 9 Feb. 2018
  • Reese, who scored 15 points and played a key part in LSU’s victory, had a terse response to the prospect that Iowa would be invited as well.
    Kate Armanini, BostonGlobe.com, 4 Apr. 2023
  • Another got a terse letter for not spraying the mold off the side of his house frequently enough.
    Cleve R. Wootson Jr., Washington Post, 7 Aug. 2017
  • After a month without a response, Cerutti wrote back with a terse reminder, adding Harper to the email.
    Lisa Song, ProPublica, 20 Sep. 2019
  • Their exchange is terse and extremely one-sided in favor of the self-righteous Bosch.
    Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 20 Oct. 2023
  • Iowans shift their schedules to encounter candidates in fleshy 3-D, away from the terse theatrics of billboards and cable-news hits.
    Dan Zak, Washington Post, 30 Jan. 2020
  • The information was terse, only that Giffords had been shot.
    Lisa Kennedy, Variety, 15 Mar. 2022
  • Her text messages from London are infrequent and terse.
    Rachel Syme, The New Yorker, 19 June 2023
  • When an agent from Shein wrote Perry offering to feature her artwork on the site, Perry gave a terse response.
    James Powel, USA TODAY, 19 July 2023
  • The 26-year-old gave terse answers to reporters' questions, and within three minutes, the press conference was finished.
    Ben Morse, CNN, 4 July 2019
  • Sounding terse in a social media comment is of less concern.
    Miss Manners | Judith Martin, Anchorage Daily News, 27 Aug. 2023
  • The Army has been closed mouthed about the incident, issuing a terse two-sentence reply to questions Friday.
    Tom Roeder, The Denver Post, 16 June 2017
  • As a result, communication with his team was terse and brief.
    Ashton Shanks, Forbes, 25 May 2021
  • XXXTentacion’s titles vary widely — some short and terse (and also in all caps), some long and sentence-like (but lowercase except for the I’s).
    Jon Caramanica, New York Times, 21 Mar. 2018
  • Sometimes the entry would be terse and factual, offering no more than a place of origin and an estimate of the number of dead.
    Jonathan Freedland, Time, 29 Dec. 2022
  • There is a lot of history packed into these terse sentences, and just as much controversy.
    William A. Galston, WSJ, 12 June 2018
  • But Ove’s motives are surprisingly complex, and his terse wit and twisted charm won the hearts of readers, both in his native Sweden and abroad.
    Nara Schoenberg, chicagotribune.com, 3 May 2018
  • His time in Northern Ireland was brief in comparison, with only a terse meeting with Sunak.
    Garret Martin, The Conversation, 6 June 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'terse.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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