Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The quality or state of being brief in duration.
- noun Concise expression; terseness.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Shortness; especially, surprising or excessive curtailment of the thing spoken of: as, the brevity of human life. Specifically
- noun Shortness in speech or writing; conciseness; condensation into few words.
- noun Synonyms Compression, terseness, pithiness, succinctness, condensation, sententiousness, curtness.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun Shortness of duration; briefness of time.
- noun Contraction into few words; conciseness.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun uncountable The quality of being
brief in duration. - noun uncountable
Succinctness ;conciseness . - noun rare, countable A short piece of writing.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the use of brief expressions
- noun the attribute of being brief or fleeting
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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This brevity is also in the service of the story, the ever shrinking life of the protagonist and this in turn accomplishes a feat which wouldn't otherwise be possible in another mode of fiction.
MIND MELD: Memorable Short Stories to Add to Your Reading List (Part 1 of 2) 2009
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(link) A literary lesson in brevity from the kids, eh?
ccfinlay: Blog Posts I Haven't Made Recently ccfinlay 2005
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The wedding invitation, once the model of a certain kind of brevity, is now often a mere component of a thick dossier with multiple stamps.
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The wedding invitation, once the model of a certain kind of brevity, is now often a mere component of a thick dossier with multiple stamps.
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I think brevity is sadly overrated in the blogging world.
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In fact, maybe you should read some Shakespeare and learn that brevity is the soul of wit.
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The father knows there is gold in brevity and wit.
Julius Wiedemann: What's in a brand? THE STORY OF THE GAP LOGO AND WHY EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE Julius Wiedemann 2010
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The father knows there is gold in brevity and wit.
Julius Wiedemann: What's in a brand? THE STORY OF THE GAP LOGO AND WHY EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE Julius Wiedemann 2010
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The sting of brevity is made much softer by the brilliant inclusion of a fully-operational level editor.
Archive 2008-04-01 2008
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Another short post, but brevity is the soul of wit.
mikepurvis commented on the word brevity
... is the soul of wit.
December 17, 2006
shalaco commented on the word brevity
Let me explain something to you. Um, I am not "Mr. Lebowski". You're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. You know, that or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing.
July 18, 2010