Concise means saying everything that needs saying in very few words. A concise email that fits on one screen and still answers the question; the four lines of cooking instructions on the back of a rice packet.
Concise is a compliment, and a demanding one, because short is easy and concise is not — a concise summary keeps all the information and drops all the padding. It describes writing, speech and style: a concise report, a concise answer, keep it concise. The adverb is concisely, the noun is conciseness, and concision is the tidier cousin you meet in books about writing. Do not mix it up with precise, which is about exactness rather than length; an answer can be perfectly precise and run to four pages. And aim the word at what someone says, not at who they are — you call the report concise, not the author.
1adjectiveconciseGiving all the necessary information in very few words.
“Her answer was concise and left nothing out.”
Also accepted in games: brief, succinct
Concise comes from Latin concīsus, 'cut short', the past participle of concīdere, to cut to pieces, which is built on caedō, 'to cut, to strike down'. The picture is exactly right: a concise sentence is one that has been cut. You get there with a blade, not by having less to say.
Proto-Indo-European
*kh₂eyd-
Latin
concīsus — cut short
English, today
concise
Built from
From Latin concīsus (“cut short”), from concido (“cut to pieces”), from caedo (“to cut, to strike down”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA