brevity

English

Etymology

First attested in English in 1509; either:

• Borrowed directly from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Latin brevitās; or
• from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Anglo-Norman brevité < from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old French brieveté < from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Latin brevitātem, accusative of brevitās, from brevis (“short”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɹɛvəti/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

brevity (countable and uncountable, plural brevities)

1. (uncountable) The quality of being brief in duration.
   • 2005, Bill Bryson, A short history of nearly everything:

     Thanks to Global Positioning Systems we can see that Europe and North America are parting at about the speed a fingernail grows—roughly two yards in a human lifetime. If you were prepared to wait long enough, you could ride from Los Angeles all the way up to San Francisco. It is only the brevity of lifetimes that keeps us from appreciating the changes.

2. (uncountable) Succinctness; conciseness.
   • 1966, Jackson E. Morris, Principles of scientific and technical writing:

     A good technical writing style will now be defined as a style possessing clarity, brevity, and variety.

3. (rare, countable) A short piece of writing.

Synonyms

• (quality of being brief in duration): ephemerality, fleetingness, transiency; see also Thesaurus:transience
• (succinctness): concision, laconicism, terseness; see also Thesaurus:succinctness

Derived terms

• brevitic
• brevity is the soul of wit

Related terms

terms related to brevity

• breve

• brief

Translations

the quality of being brief in duration

• Bulgarian: кракост f (krakost), краткотрайност (bg) f (kratkotrajnost)
• Czech: krátkost f
• Finnish: lyhytaikaisuus (fi)
• French: concision (fr) f, brièveté (fr) f
• German: Kürze (de) f
• Greek: βραχύτητα (el) f (vrachýtita)

  Ancient: βραχύτης f (brakhútēs)

• Irish: gairide f, giorracht f
• Latin: brevitās f
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: korthet (no)

  Nynorsk: stuttleik

• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Persian: ایجاز (fa) (ijâz)
• Portuguese: brevidade (pt) f
• Russian: кра́ткость (ru) f (krátkostʹ)
• Spanish: brevedad (es) f
• Swedish: korthet (sv)
• Tagalog: kaigsian
• Turkish: kısalık (tr)

succinctness; conciseness

• Bulgarian: сбитост (bg) f (sbitost)
• Czech: stručnost f
• French: concision (fr) f, laconisme (fr) m
• German: Bündigkeit f, Knappheit (de) f
• Irish: achomaireacht f, coimre f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Latin: brevitās f
• Russian: кра́ткость (ru) f (krátkostʹ), лакони́чность (ru) f (lakoníčnostʹ)
• Spanish: concisión (es) f
• Turkish: özlülük

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Arabic: ^{(please verify)} إيجاز - إجمال- قصر f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

See also

• Appendix:Brief amounts of time