using few words and often not seeming polite or friendly 简要的;简短生硬的 a terse style 生硬冷漠的风格 The president issued a terse statement denying the charges. 总统发表了一份简短的声明,否认那些指控。 Although he was terse, he didn’t rage at me. 虽然他很简洁,但他没有对我发火。
Oxford Collocations DictionaryTerse is used with these nouns:- nod
- reply
Word Originearly 17th cent.: from Latin tersus ‘wiped, polished’, from the verb tergere. The original sense was ‘polished, trim, spruce’, (relating to language) ‘polished, polite’, hence ‘concise and to the point’ (late 18th cent.).