## Etymology
From Latin tersus ('wiped off, clean, neat, polished'), past participle of tergere ('to wipe, polish'); the sense narrowed from 'polished in style' to 'concise'.

## AI Etymology
Terse comes from Latin tersus ('wiped off, clean, neat, polished'), past participle of tergere ('to wipe, polish'); the sense narrowed from 'polished in style' to 'concise'. The historical chain includes Latin tersus and Latin tergere. The quoted older senses, "wiped off, clean, neat, polished", "to wipe, polish", "polished in style", and "concise", supply the semantic anchors for terse. The formation is best read as participial and borrowed: the word terse carries its older form-history into a compact English lexical shape. In present English it is used as a adj, "sparing in words; abrupt and concise". English derivatives include tersely and terseness. The result is a adj whose etymology preserves both the older form and the later English specialization.

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