concise

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin concīsus (“cut up, cut short, brief”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} the past participle of concīdō (“to cut up, cut to pieces”),^[2][3][4][7] formed from com-, here intensive,^[5][8][9] and caedō (“to cut, strike”), whose “ae” becomes “ī” in compounds.^[2][7][10] Barnhart, Hoad and the Shorter Oxford allow that it came partly through Middle French concis (“concise”), feminine concise, recorded in French in the 16th century.^{[11][8][12][2]} Etymonline traces the Latin verb to Proto-Indo-European *kaə-id- (“to strike”),^[3][5] and Merriam-Webster compares Middle High German heie (“mallet, club”).^[4] It is related to decide and excise.^[13][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of speech or writing, expressed in few words; brief but comprehensive: c. 1590, in Marlowe's Doctor Faustus.^[2][11]

Semantic evolution

The Latin sense "cut short" was applied to style: what is concise has been pruned of everything superfluous.^[2][10] From 1604 it was used of people, and of something taking little time since 1785.^[2] Two other senses did not last: "small and compact" (1614) and, in Blount's Glossographia (1656), a sense taken from the Latin verb's meaning "to cut down, beat severely".^[2] A verb concise, to cut off or mutilate, is recorded only in 1660.^[2] Johnson (1755) defined the adjective as "brief; short; broken into short periods".^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1590 – of speech or writing, brief and comprehensive.^[2][4][11]
• 1604 – applied to people.^[2]
• 1614 – small and compact (obsolete).^[2]
• 1660 – verb concise, to cut off (obsolete).^[2]
• 1785 – taking little time; brief and direct.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Saying much in few words; brief and to the point, without unnecessary detail: a concise report on the accident.^[6][4][2]
2. Taking little time; short and direct.^[4][2]

Word family

• concisely
• conciseness
• concision

Related words

• decide
• precise
• incision
• excise

Usage notes

Dictionary.com distinguishes concise, which implies that needless words have been cut from a longer statement, from succinct, which implies a message composed in as few words as possible from the start, as well as from terse, which may add polish and wit, or curtness.^[10] The Century Dictionary, quoted by Etymonline, applied concise to style and succinct to the matter of a narrative.^[3]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
12. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.