pithy

adj

Etymology: From Middle English pithy, pythy, equivalent to pith + -y.

1. Concise and meaningful.

   “Mr. Lamb, on the contrary, being "native to the manner here," though he too has borrowed from previous sources, instead of availing himself of the most popular and admired, has groped out his way, and made his most successful researches among the more obscure and intricate, though certainly not the least pithy or pleasant of our writers.”

   “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."”

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

   “1863, Theodore Winthrop, “The Heart of the Andes”, Part 2 – Introduction, published posthumously in Life in the Open Air and other papers, Must we know the torrid zone only through travelled bananas, plucked too soon and pithy? or by bottled anacondas? or by the tarry-flavored slang of forecastle-bred paroquets?”

   “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. 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, […]”