Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Terse \Terse\, a. [Compar. {Terser}; superl. {Tersest}.] [L.
   tersus, p. p. of tergere to rub or wipe off.]
   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. Refined; accomplished; -- said of persons. [R. & Obs.]
      ``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.

   Syn: Neat; concise; compact.

   Usage: {Terse}, {Concise}. Terse was defined by Johnson
          ``cleanly written'', i. e., free from blemishes, neat
          or smooth. Its present sense is ``free from
          excrescences,'' and hence, compact, with smoothness,
          grace, or elegance, as in the following lones of
          Whitehead: 

                ``In eight terse lines has Ph[ae]drus told (So
                frugal were the bards of old) A tale of goats;
                and closed with grace, Plan, moral, all, in that
                short space.'' It differs from concise in not
          implying, perhaps, quite as much condensation, but
          chiefly in the additional idea of ``grace or
          elegance.'' -- {Terse"ly}, adv. -- {Terse"ness}, n.

Source : WordNet®

tersely
     adv : in a short and concise manner; "a particular bird, exactly
           and tersely described in the book of birds" [syn: {telegraphically}]