Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Terse

Terse , adjective

[Latin tersus, past participle of tergere to rub or wipe off.]

1.
Appearing as if rubbed or wiped off; rubbed; smooth; polished. [Obsolete]
Many stones,... although terse and smooth, have not this power attractive. — Sir T. Browne
2.
Refined; accomplished; -- said of persons. [Rare & Obsolete]
Your polite and terse gallants. — Massinger
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.”