incisive

Borrowed from Middle French incisif.

• IPA^(key): /ɪnˈsaɪsɪv/

incisive (comparative more incisive, superlative most incisive)

1. Quickly proceeding to judgment and forceful in expression; decisive; forthright.

   An incisive producer, who expressed vehement disapproval with my pitch upon my first sentence.

   • 1922, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest‎:

     She was like a Beardsley Salome, he had said. And indeed she had the narrow eyes and the high cheekbone of that creature, and as nearly the sinuosity as is compatible with human symmetry. His wooing had been brief but incisive.

2. Intelligently analytical and concise.
3. Having the quality of incising, cutting, or penetrating, as with a sharp instrument; sharp; acute; sarcastic; biting.
   • G. Eliot

     An incisive, high voice.

   • Elizabeth Browning

     And her incisive smile accrediting / That treason of false witness in my blush.

4. (anatomy) Of or relating to the incisors.

   the incisive bones, the premaxillaries

• incisively
• incisiveness
• incisivity

• IPA^(key): /ɛ̃.si.ziv/

incisive

1. feminine singular of incisif

incisive f (plural incisives)

1. incisor (tooth)

• “incisive” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

incisive

1. feminine plural of incisivo

• inveisci