View synonyms for short and sweet

short and sweet

[ shawrt uhn sweet ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

idiom

pleasantly brief and relevant:
We're in a hurry, so make it short and sweet.

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Word History and Origins

Origin of short and sweet¹

First recorded in 1540–50

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Idioms and Phrases

Satisfyingly brief and pertinent, as in When we asked about the coming merger, the chairman's answer was short and sweet—it wasn't going to happen . This expression was already proverbial in 1539, when it appeared in Richard Taverner's translation of Erasmus's Adagia . Over the years it was occasionally amplified, as in James Kelly's Scottish Proverbs (1721): “Better short and sweet than long and lax.”

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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