Sample sentences for INCISIVE - verbalworkout.com

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Definition

direct, clear, and sharp in thinking or expression — often indicating a decisive person (makes decisions quickly) or a penetrating mind

As usual, Mary's comments were incisive.

incisive = direct, clear, and sharp in thinking or expression

How can she be so brilliantly incisive on one page and so infuriatingly obtuse on the next?
as sharp and incisive as the stroke of a fang
It still had the southern richness of tone, but it had become suddenly more clear cut and incisive.
Agatha Christie -- Murder On The Orient Express

incisive = penetrating

The pattern was a little changed; the incisiveness of alarm had receded, but the bewilderment and distress were still overwhelming.
John Wyndham -- The Chrysalids

incisiveness = sharpness

(Editor's note: The suffix "-ness" converts an adjective to a noun that means the quality of. This is the same pattern you see in words like darkness, kindness, and coolness.)

he made the cut-off sign, sharply, incisively.
Hal Borland -- When the Legends Die

incisively = clearly or sharply

There was no way I was going to break first—and give Fang the satisfaction? I don't think so. But I did have an obligation, as leader, to take care of Nudge. As much as I hated to stop and lose time, it was a reality. "Okay, okay. We need food." How's that for incisive leadership?
James Patterson -- The Angel Experiment

incisive = decisive, direct and clear

His face glowed with fierce pride and his head nodded wildly—the nod beginning from the waist and including the entire upper portion of his body, with the beard moving back and forth against his chest—each time he was forced to acquiesce to Danny's rendition of a passage or to Danny's incisive counter-questioning.
Chaim Potok -- The Chosen

incisive = penetrating, clear, and sharp

Philip was slow to reply, and when he spoke, his tone had a more incisive quietness and clearness than ever.
George Eliot -- The Mill on the Floss
But Alice is an extremely intelligent woman with an incisive ability to discern character.
Betty Mahmoody -- Not Without My Daughter
"It's Perezvon's master, don't worry about me," Kolya said incisively again.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky -- The Brothers Karamazov
Into the darkness it cut incisive as diamond brilliance, beautiful as if from a spear of the morning.
Lew Wallace -- Ben Hur
That cold, incisive, ironical voice could belong to but one man in all the world.
Arthur Conan Doyle -- The Hound of the Baskervilles
"Miss Bart remains here," his wife rejoined incisively.
Edith Wharton -- The House of Mirth
She had risked it, but her brother gave her such a terribly incisive look—a look so like a surgeon's lancet—that she was frightened at her courage.
Henry James -- Washington Square
It was in this incisive strain that Mrs. Tristram moralized over Newman's so-called neglect, which was in reality a most exemplary constancy.
Henry James -- The American
' "Jumped," he corrected me incisively.
Joseph Conrad -- Lord Jim
He spoke with incisive irony.
F. Scott Fitzgerald -- Tender is the Night
She needed the whole man to do an incisive article.
Nora Roberts -- Summer Pleasures
Along the sidewalks, with incisive heels and leathery shuffle, young men and women advanced, retreated.
James Agee -- A Death in the Family

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