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brevity

UK/ˈbɹɛvɪti/US/ˈbɹɛvəti/
nounC2Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #12,609 of 15,258leans written

Brevity is shortness of speech or of time. For brevity, the brevity of the visit, brevity is the soul of wit.

Brevity is the soul of wit comes from Hamlet, and it is spoken by a character who then talks at length, which is the joke. For brevity is the standard phrase in writing for cutting something short.

Definitions of brevity

  1. 1nounbrevityShortness of speech or of time.C2

    “Given the brevity of our visit, we only had time to see the main sights.”

brevity is a shortness.

Remember it

The Latin behind it is short, the same short that gives us brief. Brevity is saying the thing and then stopping.

hooks ontobrief

Where it comes from

Latin brevitas comes from brevis, short, the root of brief and abbreviate.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *mreǵʰ-

  2. English, today

    brevity

First attested in English in 1509; either:

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

brevity in the wild

  • Due to its brevity, the sound bite often overshadows the broader context in which it was spoken, and can be misleading or inaccurate.

    Sound bite

  • The registrar operates a sliding scale of prices depending on each domain's brevity.

    .ws

  • The NATO brevity code for an air-to-air active radar homing missile launch is Fox Three.

    Active radar homing

  • For brevity, it is also referred to as Derzhstat or Ukrstat.

    State Statistics Service of Ukraine

  • Fox is a brevity code used by NATO pilots to signal the simulated or actual release of an air-to-air munition or other combat function.

    Fox (code word)

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.