Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 13, 2024 is: brusque \BRUSK\ adjective A person may be described as brusque when they are talking or behaving in a very direct, brief, and unfriendly way. Brusque can also describe speech that is noticeably short and abrupt. // We knew something was wrong when our normally easygoing professor was brusque and impatient with our class. // She asked for a cup of coffee and received a brusque reply: “We don't have any.” [See the entry >](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brusque) Examples: “Archaeologists look down on him because of his working-class background, and his brusque manner hasn't won him many friends. He doesn't argue with those he disagrees with; he just walks away.” — Dan Lybarger, The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 19 Feb. 2021 Did you know? If you’ve ever felt [swept aside](https://bit.ly/3v2UeX8) by someone with a brusque manner, that makes a certain amount of etymological sense. Brusque, you see, comes ultimately from bruscus, the Medieval Latin name for [butcher’s broom](https://www.britannica.com/plant/butchers-broom), a shrub whose bristly, leaf-like twigs have long been used for making brooms. Bruscus was modified to the adjective brusco in Italian, where it meant “sour” or “tart.” French, in turn, changed brusco to brusque, and the word in that form entered English in the 1600s. English speakers initially applied brusque to tartness in wine, but the word soon came to describe a harsh and stiff manner, which is just what you might expect of a word bristling with associations to stiff, scratchy brooms.