pithy

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Concise and meaningful.

   • The following passage, which is exquisitely pithy and exquisitely modest, winds up the description:- "In this apparatus there is nothing new but its simplicity and thorough trustworthiness."
   • IT was a pithy saying that of Lorenzo de' Medici, and true as pithy, that we are enjoined to forgive our enemies, but nowhere are we told that we should forgive our friends.
2. 2

   Of, like, or abounding in pith

   Of, like, or abounding in pith; spongy or having small holes or pits.

   • 1910, Liberty Hyde Bailey, Manual of Gardening, Suggestions and Reminders I: For the North, April, Parsnip.—Dig the roots before they grow and become soft and pithy.
3. 3

   Vigorous, powerful, strong

   Vigorous, powerful, strong; substantial.

   • His bairns a’ before the flood / Had langer tack o’ fleſh and blood, / And on mair pithy ſhanks they ſtood / Than Noah’s line, / Wha ſtill hae been a feckleſs brood / Wi’ drinking wine.
   • Next, from the well-air’d ancient town of Crail, / Go out her craftsmen with tumultuous din, / Her wind-bleach’d fishers, garrulous and thin; / And some are flush’d with horns of pithy ale, […]

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