28 January 2016

trenchant

[tren-chuh nt]

adjective

1. incisive or keen, as language or a person; caustic; cutting:
trenchant wit.
2. vigorous; effective; energetic:
a trenchant policy of political reform.
3. clearly or sharply defined; clear-cut; distinct.

Origin of trenchant

Middle English, Anglo-French, Old French
1275-1325; Middle English tranchaunt < Anglo-French; Old French trenchant, present participle of trenchier to cut. See trench, -ant

Related forms

trenchancy, noun
trenchantly, adverb

Synonyms

1. sharp, biting, acute.

Dictionary.com

Examples from the Web for trenchant

Contemporary Examples

He first hit a nerve in 1996 with his trenchant bestseller The Death of Common Sense.
Are Lawyers Killing America?
The Daily Beast
February 16, 2009

Typically, the Internet exploded with trenchant commentary about the leather jacket Palin wore.
McCain-Palin: The Sequel
Meghan McCain
March 27, 2010

Much looking forward to going on with what is apparently also a trenchant and enlightening book.
Book Bag: What Nick Harkaway Is Reading
Nick Harkaway
November 5, 2012

Anagram

tent ranch

Today’s quote

I have known more men destroyed by the desire to have wife and child and to keep them in comfort than I have seen destroyed by drink and harlots.

– William Butler Yeats

On this day

28 January 1968 – 4 hydrogen bombs are lost when the B-52 bomber that was carrying them, crashes near Thule, Greenland. The bombs are eventually located, but it took nine months to clear the area of radiation.

28 January 1939 – death of William Butler Yeats (W.B. Yeats), Irish poet, Nobel Prize laureate. One of the foremost literary figures of the 20th century. He served as an Irish senator for two terms. He led the Irish Literary Revival. In 1921 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for ‘inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation‘. Born 13 June 1865.

28 January 1986 – the space shuttle, Challenger, explodes moments after lift-off, killing all seven astronauts on board, including Christa MacAuliffe, a teacher from New Hampshire, who was scheduled to deliver a lesson from outer-space as part of the ‘Teacher in Space’ project.