English Dictionary

PITHY (pithier, pithiest)

Pronunciation (US): Play  (GB): Play

IPA (US): 

Irregular inflected forms: pithier  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation, pithiest  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation

 Dictionary entry overview: What does pithy mean? 

PITHY (adjective)
  The adjective PITHY has 1 sense:

1. concise and full of meaningplay

  Familiarity information: PITHY used as an adjective is very rare.


 Dictionary entry details 


PITHY (adjective)

 Declension: comparative and superlative 
Comparative: pithier  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation
Superlative: pithiest  Listen to US pronunciation  Listen to GB pronunciation


Sense 1

Meaning:

Concise and full of meaning

Synonyms:

pithy; sententious

Context example:

the peculiarly sardonic and sententious style in which Don Luis composed his epigrams

Similar:

concise (expressing much in few words)

Derivation:

pith (the choicest or most essential or most vital part of some idea or experience)

pithiness (terseness and economy in writing and speaking achieved by expressing a great deal in just a few words)


 Context examples 


They could always talk; and their discourse, witty, pithy, original, had such charms for me, that I preferred listening to, and sharing in it, to doing anything else.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

A long, hollow or pithy, jointed woody stem that usually lives only one or two years.

(Cane, Food and Drug Administration)



 Learn English with... Proverbs 
"If at first you don't succeed, well, you're about average" (English proverb)

"You cannot catch a flea with gloves." (Albanian proverb)

"If the heart is empty, the rest will soon abandon you too." (Arabic proverb)

"He who sleeps cannot catch fish." (Corsican proverb)



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