Brevitas

{{short description|Rhetorical style using a minimum of essential words}}

Brevitas is a rhetorical style Rhetorica ad Herennium calls "the expressing of an idea by the very minimum of essential words".{{cite book|last=Blacketer|title=The School of God: Pedagogy and Rhetoric in Calvin's Interpretation of Deuteronomy|year=2006|publisher=Springer |isbn=9781402039133|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pTxlFyS3f4cC&q=the+expressing+of+an+idea+by+the+very+minimum+of+essential+words+Rhetorica+ad+Herennium&pg=PA71}}{{cite web|title=Changing Minds: Brevitas|url=http://changingminds.org/techniques/language/figures_speech/brevitas.htm}}

By implying more than is said, it is distinguished from tautology and understatement.

Brevitas is related to concision, parataxis, sprezzatura and elliptic style.{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8iL0uoNEJXUC&q=brevitas&pg=PA231 | title=The Visible World: Samuel Van Hoogstraten's Art Theory and the Legitimation of Painting in the Dutch Golden Age | publisher=Amsterdam University Press | author=Thijs Weststeijn | year=2008 | pages=231–234| isbn=9789089640277 }}{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xuTr6BbY9MoC&q=brevitas&pg=PA188 | title=Literary Rhetoric: Concepts — Structures — Analyses | publisher=Brill Publishers | author=Heinrich F. Plett | year=2010 | pages=188| isbn=978-9004171138 }} It contrasts with periphrasis, aureation and pleonasm.