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brevity

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brevity

  • /ˈbɹɛvɪti/ UK
  • /ˈbɹɛvəti/ UK
  • /ˈbɹɛvəti/ Canada, US
  • [ˈbɹɛvəɾi] Canada, US
  • [ˈbɹɛvɾi] Canada, US
  • /ˈbɹevəti/ Australia, New Zealand
  • [ˈbɹevəɾi] Australia, New Zealand

Where it comes from

First attested in English in 1509; either:

* Borrowed directly from Latin brevitās; or

* from Anglo-Norman brevité, from Old French brieveté, from Latin brevitātem, accusative of brevitās, from brevis (“short”).

By surface analysis, brief + -ity.

noun brevities

  1. uncountable The quality of being brief in duration. 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

    Similar: ephemerality

  2. uncountable Succinctness; conciseness. [B]revity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes[.]

    Similar: concision

  3. countable, rare A short piece of writing.

Similar: fleetingness, transiency, laconicism, terseness

Thesaurus

noun

Similar: fleetingness, transiency, laconicism, terseness

Translations

Every language

noun the quality of being brief in duration

Españolbrevedad
Portuguêsbrevidade
Françaisconcision, brièveté
DeutschKürze
Italianobrevità
Ελληνικάβραχύτητα vrachýtita
Русскийкра́ткость krátkostʹ

noun succinctness; conciseness

Españolconcisión
Françaisconcision, laconisme
DeutschBündigkeit, Knappheit
Italianobrevità
Русскийкра́ткость krátkostʹ, лакони́чность lakoníčnostʹ

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Cite this
MLA

"brevity." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/brevity. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

brevity. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/brevity

Chicago

"brevity." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/brevity.

BibTeX
@misc{brevity_2026,
  title = {brevity},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/brevity},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}