short and sweet

[ shawrt uhn sweet ]

idiom

1. pleasantly brief and relevant:

   We're in a hurry, so make it short and sweet.

Word History and Origins

Origin of short and sweet¹

First recorded in 1540–50

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.”