is unfavorably used, the statement may be filled with paraded platitudes.  A pithy statement gives the very pith, the heart of a matter; it is sometimes slightly quaint, always effective and arresting.  A laconic statement is made in the manner of the Spartans, who hated talk and used as few words as possible.  A curt statement is made short; its abruptness is oftentimes more or less rude.

Sentences:  “A tale should be judicious, clear, ____.  The language
plain, and incidents well link’d.”  “Charles Lamb made the most ____
criticism of Spenser when he called him the poet’s poet.”  With a ____
disdainful answer she turned away.  The sermon was filled with ____
sayings.  By omitting all irrelevant details, he made his statement of the
case ____.  It requires great skill to give a ____ statement of what such a
treatise contains.  A proverb is a ____ statement of a truth.

Death, decease, demise.

Men are as mindful of rank and pretension in their terms for the cessation of life as in their choice of tombstones for the departed. Death is the great, democratic, unspoilable word.  It is not too good for a clown or too poor for an emperor. Decease is a more formal word.  Its employment is often legal—­the death proves to be of sufficient importance for the law (and the lawyers) to take notice. Demise, however, is outwardly the most resplendent term of all.  It implies that the victim cut a wide swath even in death.  It is used of an illustrious person, as a king, who transmits his title to an heir.  Ordinary people cannot afford a demise.  If the term is applied to their shuffling off of this mortal coil, the use is euphemistic and likely to be stilted.

Sentences:  “The crown at the moment of ____ must descend to the
next heir.” “____ is a fearful thing.”  “In their ____ they were not
divided.”  At the ____ of his father he inherited the estate.  “Each shall
take His chamber in the silent halls of ____.”  “Many a time I have been
half in love with easeful ____.”

Early, primitive, primeval, primordial, primal, pristine.

Early is the simple word for that which was in, or toward, the beginning.  That is primitive which has the old-fashioned or simple qualities characteristic of the beginning.  That is primeval which is of the first or earliest ages.  That is primordial which is first in origin, formation, or development.  That is primal which is first or original. (The word is poetic.) That is pristine which has not been corrupted from its original state.

Assignment for further discrimination:  aboriginal, prehistoric.

Sentences: It was a hardy mountain folk that preserved the ____
virtues.  The ____ history of mankind is shrouded in uncertainty.  “This is
the forest ____.”  “It hath the ____ eldest curse upon ’t, A brother’s
murder.”  “A ____ leaf is that which is immediately developed from the
cotyledon.”  As the explorers penetrated farther into the country, they
beheld all the ____ beauties of nature.  Some countries still use the ____
method of plowing with a stick.

Face, countenance, features, visage, physiognomy.