Search the Dictionary

Shortness of duration; briefness of time; as, the brevity of human life.

Conciseness of expression; brevity.

The quality of being brief; brevity; conciseness in discourse or writing.

Characterized by exessive brevity; short; rudely concise; as, curt limits; a curt answer. The curt, yet comprehensive reply. W. Irving.

Brevity; conciseness. [Obs.] Shak.

A word letter; a phonogram, that, for the sake of brevity, represents a word; as, |, i. e., t, for it. Cf. Grammalogue.

To take in the gross; to speak of collectively. Not forgetting all others, . . . whom for brevity, but out of no resentment you, I lump all together. Sterne.

Brevity in speech. [R.]

e or results; weighty; as, pregnant replies. " A pregnant argument." Prynne. " A pregnant brevity." E. Everett.

The quality or state of being short; want of reach or extension; brevity; deficiency; as, the shortness of a journey; the shortness of the days in winter; the shortness of an essay; the shortness of the memory; a shortness of provisions; shortness of breath.

ng of the artificial Johnsonian balance in his style. It is as often marked by a pregnant brevity as by a sonorous amplitude. E. Everett.

Stuntedness; brevity. [R.] Earle.

Brevity; conciseness. [R.]

empt. He [Aristotle] has suffered vastly from the transcribblers, as all authors of great brevity necessarily must. Gray.