D defs.my
Entry 3 senses Webster, 1913

Terse

/tẽrs/ · IPA /tɝːs/
01 a. Appearing as if rubbed or wiped off; rubbed; smooth; polished.
  1. 1.
    Appearing as if rubbed or wiped off; rubbed; smooth; polished.[Obs.]
    “Many stones, . . . although terse and smooth, have not this power attractive.” Sir T. Browne.
  2. 2.
    Refined; accomplished; -- said of persons.[R. & Obs.]
  3. 3.
    Elegantly concise; free of superfluous words; polished to smoothness; as, terse language; a terse style.
    Terse, luminous, and dignified eloquence.” Macaulay.
    “A poet, too, was there, whose verse Was tender, musical, and terse.” Longfellow.
    ““In eight terse lines has Phaedrus told (So frugal were the bards of old) A tale of goats; and closed with grace, Plan, moral, all, in that short space.””
Syn. Neat; concise; compact.