trenchant

comparative more trenchant · superlative most trenchant · alternative obsolete trenchaunt

1. archaicFitted to trench or cut; gutting; sharp.

   The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty, / For want of fighting was grown rusty, / And ate into itself, for lack / Of somebody to hew and hack.

   1663, Samuel Butler, Hudibras, part 1, canto 1

   1. archaicbiologyAdapted for tearing into flesh.

      The trenchant talonid is a character of some miacids and distinguishes these teeth from the hyaenodontids and oxyaenids.

      1971, Thomas H. V. Rich, Deltatheridia, Carnivora, and Condylarthra (Mammalia) of the Early Eocene, Paris Basin, France

2. figurativelyKeen; biting; vigorously articulate and effective; severe.

   trenchant wit

   2 more examples

   His eyes, of the usual blue, were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glance fall on one as trenchant and heavy as an axe.

   1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, pages 210–211

   His trenchant criticisms of the Church's repression […] include a discussion of the considerable 1938 success of the fledgling NODL in getting magazines removed from various points of sale.

   2011, Jay A. Gertzman, Bookleggers and Smuthounds: The Trade in Erotica, 1920-1940