She asked for a cup of coffee and received a brusque reply: “We don't have any.” The teacher was brusque and impatient.

Recent Examples on the Web

By then, anonymous reports of her brusque behavior at work were circulating in the tabloids. Michael Schulman, The New Yorker, "Ellen DeGeneres’s Relatability Crisis," 7 Aug. 2020

Rice is seen as highly disciplined and can be brusque in meetings and deliberations. Julie Pace, The Denver Post, "In VP search, Biden has a known quantity in Susan Rice," 24 July 2020

Led by a brusque vigilante with a special vendetta against cocky head honcho Homelander (Antony Starr), the ragtag team of CIA blackops seek to expose the truth about the Supes and end the hero worship once and for all. Ineye Komonibo, refinery29.com, "We Finally Know What To Expect In Season 2 Of The Boys & It’s Gruesome," 8 July 2020

There’s a lot of brusque nautical talk, sudden force, and only a little sentiment. Leah Greenblatt, EW.com, "Tom Hanks is the captain now in tense WWII naval drama Greyhound: Review," 6 July 2020

Devin and Maren are both, for lack of a nicer turn of phrase, profoundly corny dingbats, while Khadija always reads more like a plot device than a person, and the contempt that the book has for its characters gives it a brisk, brusque verve. Kate Knibbs, Wired, "Leigh Stein's Self Care and the Death of the Girlboss," 1 July 2020

Mixer’s slide into non-communication, culminating in the brusque announcement-via-tweet of its shutdown, led many of the partners who spoke to The Post to speculate on the timing of Mixer’s shutdown. Washington Post, "The last days of Mixer," 30 June 2020

But Wardynski also made enemies with a top-down management style that critics said was brusque and non-collaborative. Lee Roop | Lroop@al.com, al, "Controversial former Huntsville school leader almost made base-renaming decision," 11 June 2020

There was a brusque interview in a small waiting room filled with brown furniture. Joyce Johnson, The New York Review of Books, "My Abortion War Story," 8 June 2020

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'brusque.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.